Email sent to Sean Gallaghar prior to the 11/18/15 board meeting

1. ORS 332.107 Rules for school government. It is the responsibility of each district school board to establish rules for the government of the schools and pupils consistent with the rules of the State Board of Education. [Formerly 336.030; 1993 c.45 §42]

2. The school district is directed by BF - Policy Development http://policy.osba.org/brookings/AB/BF%20D1.PDF However, I have worked with over 600 policies for the Brookings-Harbor School District and all but one was created, supplied and updates provided by OSBA.

3. BHSD is one of those school districts that pay OSBA to provide these written policies and ARs to member school districts knowing that the "OSBA does not assume and disclaims any and all responsibility for the accuracy, legality and content of the BHSD's policies..." http://policy.osba.org/brookings

4. The superintendent follows policy BFD Board Policy Implementation. http://policy.osba.org/brookings/AB/BFD%20D1.PDF

5. The school board has two readings at separate regular board meetings and, if approved, becomes policy upon its appearance in the minutes of that 2nd regular board meeting.

Last year's policy committee changed a number of OSBA's recommendations so (1) the district would be in compliance with SB-2599 and SB-1555, (2) would create consistency in the definition of "protected class", (3) would create consistency in language, where possible, for complaint procedures, and (4) would start including "at official school bus stops" as a safe zone for students coming to school and coming home.

OSBA had recommended not to include the latter point in bully policies because it would expand the liability of the district, a self-serving recommendation that one would expect from a school board association, were it not for the fact that it was clearly stated in SB-1555 and ORS 339.351 (2) (b) as a responsibility of the district. The committee included it to follow the law. I would think that the district would want to insure the protection of students from someone using, possessing, distributing or selling tobacco products and inhalant delivery systems (Policies 4, 14 and 21." at official school bus stops as well.

Regarding "protected class." Attached is a chart of classes covered by various OSBA policies, three of which are up for a 2nd reading on the 18th.

The previous policy committee had started a process that when a proposed policy update that had protected class came up, unless that was a law that prohibited the inclusion of the class, it would be changed to conform with the prevision policy changes. This came about when OSBA presented the harassment policy which contained one protected class for cases of bullying and a different protected class for intimidation. As the attached chart demonstrates, the definitions between policies are quite different.

In this board packet, the first policy AC has a great, new listing of protected classes which is very close to what our Title IX coordinator developed and appears on the district's homepage. It continues to be my recommendation to update the "protected class" definitions each time it comes up and the opportunity has presented itself in policy 9 and 24, which are lacking a number of protected classes appearing in other policies.

Since I provided these and other written commented on the policy changes prior to and at the last board meeting and followed up with a more detailed analysis a couple of days later, (see the 2nd attachment therein) and since we haven't had a chance to talk about these changes as you suggested, I am sending these thoughts to board members as well. I see no reason to attend the November 18th board meeting because I have nothing to add. I decided to attend the premier of Mocking Jay Part 2 preceded by Mocking Jay Part 1 instead. I will , however, be most interested to hear if any of my suggestions, other than on Policy # 5, have been considered and accepted.

Yours in service,

Gordon Clay

PS Regarding policy #5. Since changes were made after the 1st reading, this policy should be removed from the 2nd reading group and handled as a 1st reading.