Tuesday, November 28, 2006

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.)

7 comments:

Mailyn said...

LMAO at that last one. Reminded me of the Disney employees that sneaked in a naked lady or something to that one movie. Can't remember the entire thing but yeah.

Isn't there anything you can do to get the other lady working on her half of the project? Like maybe tell the Superintendent when you see him today or something. I mean that sounds like a hella big project and she needs to get with it.

Suisan said...

I've been asking the Superintendent to help me put pressure on the other Board Member. Finally the Superintendent said, "Look. We can't wait on her any more. Just bring me what you've got, and let's get it over with. And let's get her off the committee."

So we met, and I gave the Sup everything I had.

Now the other Committee member's annoyed that we met without her. Not feeling the least touch of sympathy for her.

Because there's still a lot to edit, and I don't see her starting work on that, even afer it's been made clear that we're rolling along w/o her. "Keep up! Keep up!"

Mailyn said...

OK, she got mad that you met w/o her. Is she stupid or what? I mean, if she isn't doing her work how the hell is she going to get mad that she gets cut out of the meeting? Some people are just ugh.

At least the Sup is helping and I hope she gets the boot. LOL.

CindyS said...

She's mad because she was going to somehow work into the conversation how hard you've *both* been working. Glad you met without her. Couse, being the bitch I am I would have dumped it on the desk of the Sup and said 'there, that's my half done, call me when you get hers'.

Aren't I just politically savvy ;)

CindyS

Mailyn said...

LMAO Cindy! I am so with you on that. LOL.

Suisan said...

I've spoken to the Board member--she thanked me for doing all the work, and woudl like to now get off the committee.

OK, then. As Tim Gunn would say, "Carry on!"

CindyS said...

Can you be your own committee? Ugh.

The only thing that can happen now is to block her on if she tries again to get on a committee with you.

CindyS