Policy Services

Revised Corporal Punishment Policy

6th Edition Legal Reference Manual Order Form

The TSBA Policy Department provides educational, administrative, organizational, legal expertise and research capabilities to provide your board with consistent, effective, and current policy statements.

The TSBA Policy Service is a member of the American Association of State Policy Services (AASPS), which provides access to a wide variety of policy information from other states.

* Please Note: All policies contained in this site are for resource purposes only. Unless so noted, contents do not represent TSBA legal advice or service and are not intended for exact replication.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. What do TSBA Member Boards receive from the policy department?

They receive:

• Model policies addressing a wide range of topics from recent legislative and state regulation changes to court decisions.
• Consultations by telephone, fax, e-mail or mail for assistance in the development and revision of individual school system policies.
• Assistance in writing new policies as well as review of individual policies for educational soundness and legal implications.

2. How are policies developed?

Policies are developed as laws change, court cases are decided, State Board
Rules change and attorney general opinions are written. After policy changes
are made, a Policy Advisory Team (PAT) meets at the TSBA headquarters quarterly to discuss policy issues before the policies are sent to member boards.

The Team's members are representatives from the State Department of Education, the State Board of Education, the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents (TOSS) and members of the TSBA staff.

Please contact TSBA's Director of Policy Services, if you have policy suggestions or concerns that you like the Policy Advisory Team to consider.

3. How do I find sample policies?

• Call us - We maintain extensive research files that contain policies from
  other schools around the state and policies from other state associations.
• Go to Policy Revisions 2008 and you will find all the policies that have been updated for the current calendar year. Those policies will have explanatory notes that will indicate why the policy has been revised. Check the site often if you are not a member of TSBA's maintenance service to make sure that you have the most updated policies since mass mailings are no longer sent out.
• A list of Policies Required By Law is maintained so that you can make sure that you have the most recent mandated policies

4. Where can I find sample administrative procedures?

TSBA has worked in conjunction with TOSS to develop sample administrative procedures. These procedures are on the TOSS website and can be accessed by a password. If a system has Acrobat Writer, the procedures can be downloaded and adapted for the needs of the system.

5. What services are available through TSBA's policy department?

We offer a number of fee-based services and products to member boards:

Customized Policy Service- This service is designed to help boards develop a policy manual. We use the old policy manual, two years of board minutes and a questionnaire to write a first draft. The first draft is sent to the board with yellow summary sheets that explain briefly what was done with each policy and the summary sheets have all the laws that relate to the policy. That way, the board can check the laws as they work through the first draft of the policy manual.

After the first draft is adopted, we check all the changes to make sure everything is still legal and then send a final copy to the board.

Maintenance Service - After a manual is customized, the board can opt to sign up for our maintenance service. This is a monthly service to keep manuals updated. We provide monthly calendar reports so that boards have a record of when policies were adopted. (We send the entire year in December) Quarterly audit reports are sent to help track outstanding policies that have been sent to boards for consideration.

On-line Manuals - As an addition to our maintenance service, we offer an on-line service. This service provides an on-line manual to be placed on the board's website. This allows boards to reduce secretarial workload and paper costs for board policies and it reduces the potential liability associated with using inaccurate and outdated manuals. Policy manual users can easily locate and print school board policies; search the entire manual for terms or phrases on a particular topic and find all relevant policies; read the legal references that apply to each policy; copy sections of the policy manual; and, view the entire board manual from any computer with Internet access.

Legal Reference Manual - This publication is written to provide laws specific to policies. The Legal Reference Manual has relevant excerpts from the Tennessee Code Annotated, federal laws, State Board Minimum Rules and Regulations, court cases and attorney general opinions. Insert updates are published annually. This publication is available for $100 for policy Maintenance subscribers and $150 for non-policy maintenance subscribers.

To order contact the Policy Department or print and mail an order form along with your payment to TSBA.

6. How can I learn more about policy?

You can attend the school board academy module on policy or you can attend annual summer workshop sponsored by the policy department.

This workshop offers updates on policy development relating to changes in federal and state law and recent court cases. Every year there are presentations on the most current issues so that participants will be able to make revisions to their policy manuals. Previous policy workshops have offered presentations on the No Child Left Behind Act, IDEA guidelines, gangs, student searches, personnel issues and the legal implications of policy. The Next Workshop: Friday, August 1, 2008 (Nashville, TN - TSBA Headquarters).