Every five years, as part of NJSBA’s regular upkeep of membership policy resources, the policy department and legal department “sunsets” the Critical Policy Reference Manual (CPRM). The sunset consists of a review of the legal citations for each of the policy documents and a review of the sample policy language. Although NJSBA policy and legal staff update policies on an ongoing basis as laws change or are enacted, the sunset schedule provides an additional assurance to the membership that each resource document policy services publishes is regularly scrutinized for accuracy and compliance with the applicable state and federal laws and regulations.
Additionally, the sunset review allows NJSBA staff to refresh outdated language, substitute terms which have been changed, and review the monitoring status of the policies and legal references.
Beginning this month, and over the next several months, Policy Services will be posting updates that have resulted from the sunset review on the Policy Update List and announcing these updates in School Board Notes. We will only be posting (on the Policy Update List) the revisions to the policy language. A report that fully describes all the changes to both the policy language and the legal references will be published following the completion of the sunset review.
The first sunset review updates are as follows:
Critical Policy Reference Manual (School Districts)
The 1000 and 2000 series have been reviewed and the following policies were revised:
1120 Board of Education Meetings was edited and restructured and a section titled School Report Card added.
2131 Chief School Administrator was edited and the bullet list revised to include quantitative and/or qualitative merit criteria and the performance of contractual duties (C and H).
2240 Evaluation, Planning and Research – The section titled School-Level Planning was edited and the title of the section was changed to Planning at the School Level. Note: The school-level plan was part of the old QAAR monitoring system and is no longer explicitly required by law. However, in order to compile the data required for NJQSAC and the School Report Card, school-level planning is still necessary.
Critical Policy Reference Manual (Charter Schools)
The 1000 and 2000 series have been reviewed and the following policies were revised:
1120 Board of Trustee Meetings was revised to include a section titled School Performance Report/School Report Card.
2131 Lead Person was edited and the bullet list revised to include quantitative and/or qualitative merit criteria and the performance of contractual duties (C and H).
2240 Evaluation, Planning and Annual Report was edited and the section titled School-Level Plan was deleted and replaced with sections titled Planning at the School Level and Annual Report.
2255 Action Planning for Charter Renewal was edited to include more detail about the charter renewal process.
You may directly download these policy updates from the Critical Policy Reference Manual (CPRM) district or charter versions or the Policy Update List on your password-protected Policy Resources webpage at staging.njsba.org.
You may also contact a policy consultant at (609)278-5268 or email: Jean Harkness, policy consultant, at [email protected] or Steve McGettigan, policy manager at [email protected].