Board of Education - Policies

The policies and administrative rules of the Saginaw Township Community Schools District Board of Education are the result of a combined effort of the professional staff of the Michigan Association of School Boards, the Board of Education and the District's staff.

The staff of MASB has written the policy and rule model and integrated into that model the valid policies and procedures being used in the District at the time of the first draft. Upon completion of the first draft, a MASB staff member and selected staff members of the District worked in consort to edit all of the proposed policies and rules resulting in preparation of a second draft to be presented to the Board.

A special acknowledgement should go to the Board members and to the Superintendent of Schools who spent many hours studying the drafts and revisions to these policies and rules.

Understanding the Policy System
Policies are principles adopted by the Board to chart a course of action. They tell WHAT is wanted and may include WHY and HOW MUCH. They are broad enough to indicate a line of action to be taken by the administration in meeting a number of problems day after day; they should be narrow enough to give the administration clear guidance.

RULES, REGULATIONS OR PROCEDURES are the detailed directions that are developed by the administration and staff to put policy into practice. They tell HOW, WHEN, WHERE and BY WHOM things are to be done. They are not adopted by the Board, but, rather, are allowed to be changed, as needed, by the administration to meet the needs of day-to-day policy enforcement and administration of the schools.

This philosophy was incorporated into the thinking that produced the model and guided the Board and the District's staff in developing the final, adopted policies and review of rules.

The bylaws and policies are kept in a binder containing nine sections of policies and, where appropriate, administrative rules. These sections are as follows:

Policies and Rules - complete set of all sections

Index

Policies separated by section:

1000 Board Bylaws

2000 General Schools Administration

3000 Fiscal Management

4000 Business Management

5000 Personnel

6000 Negotiations

7000 Instructional Program

8000 Students

9000 General Public & Organizational Relations

This type of classification system is designed for computer use and adaptation to publication of the manual on the WWW, and conforms to sound principles of information storage and retrieval; to sound principles of school governance; and to the mandates of practicality. The system's ultimate success or failure will depend on the extent of its day-to-day usefulness as a management tool to facilitate school and Board operations.