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Help for Policy Development
Who will do it?
It is the legal
responsibility of the school’s Board of Governors to establish
policies, to assure that they are consistent with school philosophy and
that they are enacted consistently. This should be done with
the direct involvement of the head of school whose educational expertise is
invaluable to the process. Policies may be created by the head of
school, the principal, a committee of teachers a subcommittee of the Board
or any competent individual or group, and be submitted to the Board to
discuss, adapt, and finally adopt. A process for review, implementation and
regular update should be implemented. Please keep in mind that policies
that are not consistently applied are potentially more damaging in a legal
sense than having no policies at all.
Policy
or Procedure?
Often statements of
procedure are mistaken for policy. In the simplest terms, Policy is
a general statement of the concepts of what should be done or not
done. Procedure is the explanation of the steps of how the policy
is to be applied/implemented. We will offer ideas about procedures here as
well.
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General Characteristics of Policies
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General Characteristics of Procedures
(usually developed by the
Administrator/Principal,
based upon the policies)
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• Widespread/”global” application
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• Narrow/more specific in application
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• Infrequent changes
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• Prone to changes
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• Usually expressed in broad terms
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• Often spelled out in great detail
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• Statements of "what" and/or
"why"
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• Statements of "how,"
"when" and/or sometimes "who"
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• Deals with major (“global”)
school issues
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• Steps/processes to be followed are clearly
set out
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What is policy?
To be legal, a policy must be written,
fully documented, and passed by the board in accordance with existing
bylaws. You can find help for boards in developing policies by
clicking here.
This site asks the right questions and suggests how to proceed.
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