North Judson-San Pierre School Board members held the first readings over the revisions to the certified and non-certified handbooks when they met Tuesday night.
Superintendent Dr. Annette Zupin shared that the certified handbook is a fairly recent addition, as state laws changed what is allowed to be included in the master contract for teachers. She noted, “The teacher contract can only have monetary issues but there are a lot of things to answer outside of what is monetary and so a handbook was created and we just need to update those.”
The certified handbook applies to teachers and Dr. Zupin said that aside from some organization and cleaning up, the major two major changes were the addition of the most recent child abuse reporting guidelines provided through the state and a section discussing the teacher evaluation process. Zupin said she felt it was important to include some information about evaluations, to allow any new teachers to know how often they’d be evaluated and by what standards.
The non-certified handbook, which applies to additional staff, was also re-organized to help with clarity. In addition to that, the revised handbook also includes the child abuse reporting guidelines as well as some changes to the paid holidays and non-paid days off.
Dr. Zupin noted that the handbook has always included something about non-paid days but they amended the section to address that employees must receive permission prior to taking the day off. She added that it also states that if an employee misses too many days, they will need to meet with administrators.
Zupin said she discussed the certified handbook with the teacher’s association and covered the non-certified handbook with supervisors. Members simply held the first reading over these revisions when they met this week. The amended handbooks will be up for adoption at NJ-SP’s May school board meeting.
