Now THERE'S a paperweight!

Every School District has a set of policies which are approved by the Board. Every employee of the District must follow the policies, which are based on law, and are further based on a series of sample policies drafted by the professional organization for School Boards. In California, the organization is the California School Boards Association (CSBA).

Double sided, our policy manual takes up three four inch binders (although the last binder is not full).

Since March I have been on the Policy Committee--it is our job to review our policies for accordance with the approved samples. a good portion of our policies were last reviewed in 1989.

Let that sink in for a minute. 1989.

Do you think that maybe some laws have changed?

The Policy Committee decided to take on the task of addressing the largest section of the manual, the section which relates, not surprisingly, to Student policies. (Attendance, Promotion, Discipline, Health Screening, etc. Instruction is the second largest section of the manual.)

I don't have the time to go into a major bitch kitty rant here, but I've been The Only Person to work on this project. So freaking frustrating.

So today, I've printed out all the work I did, and I'm heading down to the Superintendent's office, where we will sort the policies into those we can send directly to the Board, and the ones which need further staff review. I know that every time I open up the files on the computer it is clear that I have done a ton of work. But it's not until you print everything out, every policy reviewed for accordance, every policy edited with strikeouts for deletions and bold for additions, every policy attached to a cover memo detailing the changes, that it all sinks in.

One hour to print, six inches of paper, and I probably have anther ten policies to add in.

No wonder I've been so pissed at the other Board Member on the Policy Committee who keeps saying she'll work from the end of the section and meet me in the middle. Ha!

Oh well. There's an unwritten rule in committee work that whoever does the work dominates the committee. Well, I guess by default that's me.

Anyone have any suggestions for sneaky additions I can throw in, since it's totally clear that I'm the only one who's ever going to read these things before the Board adopts them?

(OK, kidding. Kidding.)

(Kind of.)