The school board will meet on Dec. 17 to vote on revised policies for the district. According to school board president Layla Spanenberg, the meeting is expected to be brief.

“Typically in December, our meetings are fairly light. It’s typically last minute business, which needs to be taken care of before we go on break. It’s not attended very well, and we don’t want to take up more time than necessary,” Spanenberg said.

Although Spanenberg said she expects the meeting to be over quickly, the board will review and vote on multiple revised policies and bylaws. Committee members recently reviewed the professional policies, which are for teachers, and decided to make slight adjustments.

“(The professional policies) have been vetted through the administration and board members. There might be some tweaks to them, but their gists remain consistent,” Spanenberg said.

According to Spanenberg, revised Policy 3139 is about staff discipline, and its revision makes the consequences for offending school policies more progressive. Spanenberg said the new staff discipline policy reflects policies that the school system already has in place to deal with student discipline.

“The change we are proposing is progressive discipline. The whole purpose of it is to reinforce positive behavior, and it outlines different options that the administration has to deal with situations,” Spanenberg said. “The first act of discipline involves the least amount of consequences. We feel this is the most beneficial solution; it’s the least amount of sanction to help remedy the problem.”

Student body president Chris Johnson said he thinks this new policy is a good idea in general, but that discipline policies should be more specific for staff members.

“It really depends on the situation. Sometimes progressive discipline would be good, sometimes it wouldn’t be. In severe cases, teachers should have set policies that do not reflect those of students,” Johnson said.

In addition to Policy 3139, board members will vote on Policy 3212, which protects staff members who report the behavior of their peers. It also states that staff members will remain protected if their report is not accurate.

“The person who made the report will be protected from discipline and retaliation. The employee believed this to be true at the time he reported it, so they reported it and should be protected,” Spanenberg said.

Johnson said this policy will be beneficial to staff members and students.

“Rules like this are good but they have a lot of gray area. If it was intentionally false, then I think punishment is needed. But if staff members report what concerns them at the time and are trying to help, and then the issue isn’t true, they should be protected.”

Spanenberg said she expects the revised policies to pass when school board members vote at their meeting. In addition to voting on the policies, she said an outgoing board member will make a presentation.

Spanenberg said, “At the meeting there will be a presentation from outgoing vice president Andrew Klein. He’s been a member of the board for four-and-a-half years, and he decided not to run for reelection. He’s going to share some thoughtful words with us about his time on the school board.”