NIS Blog: Enforcing Policies that Protect Children

Since being involved with the nutrition initiative, I have
learned much about the UD school district in the last three years.  I have attended many school board meetings and through all of them, it seems that there is always one thing that seems consistent:  Many community members with
many questions that are not always answered. It is in the least, very frustrating, as everyone has only 4 minutes of community input, and dare not go one millisecond over, for fear of being cut off in mid-sentence.  Then the hope is
that your question is answered, but that is not always the case.  It seems very disrespectful, as this is really one of the only ways to communicate with school board members, and yes there is limited time for questions and accompanying discussion that relates to taxes, budgets, policies and other important issues. 

The primary responsibility, as I have been told, of the school board is dealing with policies.  A policy is written to set a standard to be followed, so that everyone knows “the laws” to abide by.  It helps things to run smoother, and often will address consequences for non-compliance, at least for students.  So when the wellness policy, a federally mandated policy, was not being followed by administrators, as was stated by a school board member three years ago, that was very surprising.  To try and address this situation, many parents, teachers and administrators worked long and hard to revise the “boiler plate” policy to make it more about Upper Dublin and the high standards that we as a district possess, but yet making it a "workable policy".  We were told that there would be administrative regulations along with the policy, that are simply more details about the actual policy itself.  What we were not told, but have since found out, was that the administrative regulations were not really part of the policy, and therefore do not require waivers for deviations, as they were only “guidelines” for the administration.  Guidelines, which according to school board members, did not necessarily need to be followed.  There are other policies that have administrative guidelines, like the allergy and bullying policies, and the
administrative guidelines for these policies also contain procedures to protect
children, in some cases from serious or fatal reactions, but yet these
documents are just “guidelines”? 

If you agree that there should be compliance  by district employee/Administrators for policies along with their accompanying administrative regulations, please sign the attached form that specifically addresses the current non- compliance, by the Upper Dublin School District, of the Government mandated Wellness policy and
accompanying administrative regulations.

http://tinyurl.com/enforcingpolicy

As important stakeholders, we have a right to know that someone, as stated in this policy, is ensuring compliance. Just as with the other policies/administrative regulations mentioned, this one is also written with the intent to address the children’s future health and wellbeing, and therefore needs to be followed.  

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