October 15, 2015 at 6:00 PM - Bethel Board of Education Policy Committee Meeting

Rationale: 

This policy is being reviewed to add language so that students who take high school courses in middle school will be granted high school credit.  The two most frequent areas in which our students at Bethel Middle School take high school courses are in mathematics and world language.  

Rationale:  This summer, the fundraising policy was reviewed with all parent groups.  There were a few concerns which need clarification.  Minor revisions to language were made in committee.

Rationale:  Policy 5114, Suspension/Expulsion/Due Process is being submitted to the Bethel Board of Education for its first reading. 

Public Act 14-229:  An Act Concerning the Expungment of a Pupil's Cumulative Education Record for Certain Expulsions provides new statutory regulations regarding expungment of expulsions from a students cumulative records under certain circumstance. In addition to the statutory requirements, all administrators also reviewed the policy and provided input to revisions.  The recommended language is included as part of the revisions. The policy has been reviewed once at the subcommittee level. 

The major changes regarding expungment include:

1. erase the expulsion before a student graduates if the student was never previously suspended or expelled, had the expulsion shortened or waived upon completing a board specified program, and met board requirements.
2. erase the expulsion for students in grades K-8, involving firearms and deadly weapons, if the conduct and behavior of the student in the years following the expulsion warrant it. 

In addition there were legislative changes for suspension and expulsion of K-2 students. These are new additions to the draft version.  

This Shipman & Goodwin's Model Policy went to the Board for a first reading on May 14, 2015 and was revised in committee and the revisions went back to the Board for a first reading on September 17, 2015.

Rationale: 

This policy needs to be updated given recent legislative changes.  The major changes in the legislation includes: 

• Only using restraint in emergency situations (the child is at harm of themselves or others).  
• The previous legislation only applied to students with disabilities.  The new legislation apples to all students. 
• Sets forth new training requirements for districts.

We have included our existing policy on restraint and seclusion.  At the request of the policy committee members we also included Shipman and Goodwin's model policy for consideration.