§18-5-14 Policies to promote school board effectiveness. - West Virginia Statutes

§18-5-14. Policies to promote school board effectiveness.
(a) No later than the first day of August, two thousand three, each county board shall adopt and file with the state board copies of policies and summaries of policies that promote school board effectiveness. These policies may be modified by the county board as necessary, but shall be refiled with the state board following each modification. The policies shall address the following objectives:

(1) Establishing direct links between the county board and its local school improvement councils and between the county board and its faculty senates for the purpose of enabling the county board to receive information, comments and suggestions directly from the councils and faculty senates regarding the broad guidelines for oversight procedures, standards of accountability and planning for future needs as required by this section. To further development of these linkages, each county board shall:

(A) Meet at least annually with a quorum of members from each local school improvement council in the district, at a time and in a manner to be determined by the county board, except, in order to facilitate scheduling, the county board may adopt an alternate procedure allowing it to conduct the required annual meeting with each council in the absence of a quorum of council members if the alternate procedure has received prior approval from the state board and if the school district serves more than twenty thousand students or has more than twelve public schools.

Nothing in this section prohibits a county board from meeting with representatives of a local school improvement council, but at least one annual meeting shall be held, as specified in this section.

At any time and with reasonable advance notice, county boards may schedule additional meetings with the council for any low performing school in the district;

(B) At least thirty days before an annual meeting with each local school improvement council, develop and submit to the council an agenda for the annual meeting which requires the council chair or a member designated by the chair, to address items designated by the county board from the report created pursuant to this section, and one or more of the following issues:

(i) School performance;

(ii) Curriculum;

(iii) Status of the school in meeting the unified school improvement plan established pursuant to section five, article two-e of this chapter; and

(iv) Status of the school in meeting the county plan established pursuant to section five, article two-e of this chapter;

(C) Make written requests for information from the local school improvement council throughout the year or hold community forums to receive input from the affected community as the county board considers necessary; and

(D) Report details to the state board concerning the meeting or meetings held with councils, as specified in this section. The information shall be provided to the state board at the conclusion of the school year, but no later than the first day of September of each year, and shall become an indicator in the performance accreditation process for each county. In order to facilitate development of this report, a county board may consult with and request assistance from members of the councils.

(2) Providing for the development of direct links between the county board and the community at large allowing for community involvement at regular county board meetings and specifying how the county board will communicate regularly with the public regarding important issues;

(3) Providing for the periodic review of personnel policies of the district in order to determine their effectiveness;

(4) Setting broad guidelines for the school district, including the establishment of specific oversight procedures, development and implementation of standards of accountability and development of long-range plans to meet future needs as required by this section; and

(5) Using school-based accreditation and performance data provided by the state board and other available data in county board decisionmaking to meet the education goals of the state and other goals as the county board may establish.

(b) On or before the first day of August of each year, county school boards shall review the policies listed in subsection (a) of this section and may modify these policies as necessary.