School board to address emergency policies in wake of administrative mask decisions
The School Board of Lee County will bring two policies that address emergencies and protective gear back to the table for more discussion.
After an update on Oct. 4 about how the board’s newest policy, 1.181, Emergency Requirement for Protective Gear, has panned out since it was adopted on Sept. 1, 2020, Board Member Mary Fischer said the board should also talk about policy 1.81, Emergencies, since it was last revised in 2015.
“The superintendent should bring recommendations forward to the board. As a governance team we need to be informed,” Fischer said.
School board policy 1.18 covers a number of emergency powers granted the school district superintendent.
Those powers include an ability, “in case of an emergency involving the welfare and safety of students and employees” for the superintendent to suspend any part of these policies. Another section states that “during times of general public emergency, the superintendent is authorized to use all available resources of the district in cooperation with other agencies to alleviate the emergency, and directed to keep the board current on all decisions.”
The policy includes language that has been applied to mask requirements and recommendations: “procedures and guidelines related to the use of implementation of protective gear on school board property will be established by the superintendent and are incorporated by reference herein.”
“I would like to see a change in the language, so that any minor changes are communicated to the board and any major changes are discussed with the board in non-emergency situations,” Board Member Chris Patricca said.
She said the policy 1.181 gives the superintendent the ability to act rapidly when changes are happening quickly. When they are not in an emergency the entire leadership team should come together and have discussion, so the board can direct the superintendent to do something different if needed, Patricca added.
Policies are reviewed periodically every three years, according to Board Member Cathleen O’Daniel Morgan.
“In this case, this was a new policy and written for a specific situation. I think we need to go back and look at the policy and make certain this is what we expected in case it happens again,” she said. “This was an extraordinary policy in extraordinary times.”
Morgan told the board they should use their experience the first time around while looking at the policy again to see if any changes are needed moving forward.
Another view was given by Board Member Gwyn Gittens, who felt the discussion was just nitpicking everything.
“This is an unusual time with COVID and all the has gone on. We can’t go back and keep changing our policies and what we do because of the situation that has happened globally,” she said. “Those decisions have been made. I think we have a policy and the procedures in place.”
Gittens said they should abide by the policy that they discussed and passed.
“Here are the rules, follow the rules that we made,” she said.
Patricca disagreed as it was discussed that if changes were made with emergency requirement for protective gear it would be communicated to the board, which did not happen.
“This is a brand-new policy. As we live with the policy in a brand-new situation like a pandemic, you recognize some weaknesses and clarify that,” she said.
Patricca said she had called for a special meeting regarding protective gear, but the policy did not require that, so the meeting did not happen. If the policy included a special meeting, the board would have come together to have discussions.
No date was set for the followup discussion.
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