The Knox School Board has finalized its latest round of policy updates. On Tuesday, board members approved a list of 18 policy revisions recommended by policy consultant NEOLA.
One of them would explicitly ban alcohol or betting from events held by outside organizations at school facilities. That would mean that outside organizations wouldn’t be allowed to hold bingo events at school facilities, but raffles held by school groups could continue, since they wouldn’t fall under this policy.
Other changes have to do with reduction in force policies and requirements for maintaining records following investigations of certain complaints. The updated policies also explicitly allow school employees to conduct corporation business by text or instant message on their cell phones.
Going forward, Knox school officials are also looking to change the approval process for fields trips. Currently, all field trips are supposed to be approved by the school board at the beginning of each school year. The proposed update would give the superintendent the authority to approve most field trip requests. Only out-of-state and overnight field trips would require board approval.
Superintendent Dr. William Reichhart presented the proposed policy update to the school board Tuesday. He noted that it’s difficult to anticipate all the field trips that could come up weeks, let alone months, in advance.
The policy will be brought back for final approval next month.
