King Philip School Committee Reviews School Policy, Approves Fees Structure

The King Philip School Committee met at the Woods School in Plainville Monday night to finish old business and complete the first readings for many items.

Completing unfinished business, the committee continued to look at the FY2013 budget, this time focusing on activities fees for athletics and band. As explained by Dr. Wendy Wagner Robeson, a new structure would be created for sports fees.

Under the current system, sports are divided into three tiers based on the cost of the sport per student. The proposal creates a four tier system starting at $200 with each tier increased by $100.

To decided which sport goes where, the total cost of the program is divided by the amount of students participating in the sport. The number is then rounded down or up to the nearest tier to create the fee.

For the band program, the cost to student ratio will remain in effect for the program's fee but some extra trips may be scaled back to stay within the budget and the cost of transportation might be looked at.

For families that cannot afford the fees, they will be able to apply for a waiver. The cutoff was taken from the Norfolk Housing Authority’s income standard of $66,000 for a family of four. As they have in previous years, KP will allow families with multiple children in the school to pay lower fees for second and third child. 

The new fees were passed with unanimous consent after the discussion. 

In new business, the committee, along with KP assistant principal John Gould, had the first reading of the changes in the high school handbooks.

Among the changes was that the word expectations in the mission statement would be replaced with “21st century learning expectations.”

One of the main changes and points of discussion was the new language of the dance regulations. The newly expanded and more specific policy does add things such as allowing guest from outside the KP community and addresses distasteful dancing.

Any signs of inappropriate dancing will result in the brightening of the light and the halting of the music if necessary. Despite the emphasis on the new policy on inappropriate dancing, there have been few major issues, according to Gould concerning the dancing styles of the KP student body.

The committee had no questions or comments on the changes in the middle school handbook. There were also no changes in the teacher’s handbook.

In the first readings of section G and H of the policy manual, Roberson recommended that section G.B.E.D. be changed to prohibit any smoking by staff instead of the current policy of smoking before and after school. The changed was deemed unnecessary as staff may not smoke at any school events or activities, therefore making tobacco use almost impossible by staff members.

With many of the committee members lacking questions about the new policies, Michael Gee mentioned that a lot of the adjustments just simplify the policy, while superintendent Elizabeth Zielinski also mentioned that some of the policies were updated to be up to standard to new state laws such as the concussion policy.

Before adjourning for the evening, Zielinski informed the committee that the policy subcommittee has reviewed all school policy, opening the door for many first and second readings to come in future meetings with a goal to have the policy updated by September.

To see the agenda and the changes made to the handbooks and policy manual, click here.