Policy changes in the works

DAYTON–The District School Board heard reports on both a school counselor framework, and on policy governance; and approved a teacher retirement at the meeting on May 22.

The counseling staff have been working on the school counselor framework project throughout the year, and passed on a 30-page document detailing a framework plan of role description, mission, and goals of counselors. The counselor team believes this plan was tailor made to the needs of the Dayton School District and follows the OSPI requirements.

The plan would provide new incoming counselors an understanding what has been accomplished, district needs now and in the future. The framework is set up for one full time counselor and one part time counselor.

Presently, the grant used to round Squires ended this week, and a replacement grant has yet to be found secured. Without funding, the district be able to fund only one school counselor.

The board did not approve the School Counselor Framework project at this meeting. They had concerns about the curriculum counselors were advocating for K-5th grade; and how to accomplish the framework without a second counselor due to budget constraints. They needed time to read and further discuss the project agreeing to table it until the next school board meeting.

Rick Maloney a University Place, Wash. school board member, introduced the Policy Governance to the board stating the University Place Board this policy in 2003. He focused on how the policy works, why it was implemented, and what the benefits are to both the board and students.

"Many boards don't fully understand what we mean by governance. The default is to manage the superintendent. And this when taken to an extreme is considered micromanaging. But there is also a problem that many superintendents don't understand governance because their default is to manage the board," said Maloney. Policy governance clarifies in writing, the role of the board and the role of the superintendent to relieve confusion. There is some criticism that policy governance gives too much power away to the superintendent, but it is the belief of those that are using it, that if there is balance between the board and the superintendent it works very well.

"We have to take responsibility for our own role on the board, but we also have to assign responsibility to the superintendent to get the job done, and to grant sufficient authority to do that job as well."

"...outside of this role experience, I wish I had half of what we just talked about when I first started two years ago," said Board Member Ryan Paulson. "Any kind of guidance is fantastic. I have been winging it for two and half years, so to have something like this in place would have been fantastic in my opinion."

"When I came on and we had our previous superintendent, there was a lot of micromanaging needed because our superintendent wasn't doing his job and left the board having to do what we had to do," said Board Member Aneesha Dieu. "...it's very difficult to know how things are going if we decide to step back. I can tell you from my work and my board's perspective, it's very hard to understand the day-to-day things that are going on and then they come in and try and address issues. You rely on a single person to come in and tell you things, and that is where we got in trouble before."

Currently, Dayton uses a Traditional Policy method. Maloney presented a list of approximately 20 districts in Washington that have adopted policy governance, and one that partially uses this method.

Superintendent Rich Stewart stated that this type of governance will give guidelines to new superintendents which sets them up for success and that it is based on trust between the board and the superintendent.

No action was taken by the board at this time to adopt governance policy. If you are interested in more information about it, you can contact the superintendent.

The board unanimously approved the retirement of Polla Laib as well as an overnight stay for the High School Track team for the State Track Meet in Yakima. The Track Team left on May 23 for the competition.