Crookston Public Schools held a Policy Committee Meeting on Thursday night to discuss any potential changes to its existing policies. Crookston Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson led the meeting, and the Policy Committee is made up of School Board Members Dave Davidson, Adrianne Winger, and Patty Dillabough.
Olson stated they try to have as few Policy Committee Meetings as possible, but reviewal of the School District’s policies is necessary. “We try not to have any more Policy Meetings than we have to because, to be honest, they are fairly boring, and most policies remain the same,” said Olson. “It is important to have these policies, though, because they are crucial to how we operate and run the School District. When I showed up to Crookston, we hadn’t reviewed our policies in a while, so the board has made an effort to keep all of our policies up to date, and we are now finally at that point. So moving forward, we will be looking at having just an annual Policy Meeting each year instead of having multiple meetings each year.”
The different policies covered by Olson during the meeting included the Budget, Transportation of Public-School students, Transportation of Nonpublic-School students, School District Emergency Procedures, Video Recording on a School Bus, Extracurricular Transportation, Surveillance other than School Buses, Student Activity Accounting, Fund Balances, Vending Machines, Uniform Grant Guidance for Federal Revenue, Care of Receipts, Short Term Loans, Financial Reports and Statements, Support Service Goals, Public Use of School Records, Safety Program, Emergency Closings, Insurance Management, Building and Grounds Management, Food Service Management, School Lunch, Use of School Cars, Use of School Service Vehicles, Equal Access to School Facilities, Waste Reduction and Recycling, Crisis Management, Health and Safety, Community Education, Use of School District Facilities and Equipment, Visitors to School District Buildings and Sites, Distribution of Materials on School District Property by non-school persons, Advertising, and Rewards.
The Committee reviewed Superintendent Olson’s presentation of the different policies, and while most policies will remain the same, a few small changes in transportation were discussed. “The most important policy change we made was making sure our policies follow our operations,” said Olson. “We’ve made some changes in our policies regarding transportation and pickup of students that gives parents more freedom. We want to be as family-friendly as possible in our district, and while those changes had been made a few years ago, we cemented them into our policy tonight.”
The biggest change made to the transportation policy that is now cemented into place, was parents now having two drop-off locations for their children during the school week. Most of the other procedures will not need changes other than a couple due to statutory reasons from the state. The Committee will now review and update their policies once a year.
