Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Nevada computerizes policies

With the numbers of new legislation passed each year, school districts have the task of making sure individual policy manuals meet state laws.

The Nevada School District voted, during the March 19 meeting, to use a model manual from the Arkansas School Board Association (ASBA) to update the district's manual for the coming year.

Nevada School Superintendent Rick McAfee told the board the state Legislature passed more than 300 laws relating to education during the past session. He said he expects the next session to produce that many more laws.

Some are only slight changes while others were major, but the result is school districts are faced with the daunting task of going over policy manuals to be sure none of the local school's policies conflict with law.

The ASBA has produced a computerized model manual the Nevada School District will use as a basis for the local policy manual.

Nevada School will add the name of the school and other local information where appropriate, producing a basic policy manual. Then the district can add any other policies specific to the Nevada School District and submit those policies to the attorneys at the ASBA where they will be reviewed to ensure they do not conflict with any other policies, or with state law.

The service comes with an $800 annual price tag, but McAfee said the district could expect to spend that much for an attorney to review the manual.

McAfee said the district currently updates the policy manual annually in an effort to include all new legislation.

"But with 300 updates, it's hard to say we have every one," McAfee said.

Following the board's approval to purchase the package, McAfee said work on the new policy manual should begin immediately in an effort to have the manual complete before the beginning of the next school year.

In other business, the board discussed new testing regulations in the works by the state and federal departments of education.

McAfee said he hopes to see state and federal testing requirements met by a single annual test, rather than a series of tests. He said students are "test weary" and often have no real incentive to do well on the tests.

McAfee said the timing of the tests are often a problem. If the tests are given in the spring, there is no way to tell what skills need to be concentrated on during the school year. If the tests are given in the fall, there is no way to tell how effective the teacher has been during the year.

McAfee said one answer could be a lighter version of the standardized test to be given by the local school district during the spring. This would give the teachers a list of skills that need to be focused on during the year, and a basis for comparison at the end of the year to judge the effectiveness of the curriculum.

Nevada students will be taking this year's benchmark exams on April 8-9. End of course exams in literacy will be given on April 10-11, and end of course exams in algebra and geometry will be on May 1-2.

The district's prom will be held on April 26 with dinner at 6 p.m.

The Nevada Future Business Leaders of America club brought home several awards from the area competition and participants are now headed to state trials.