BOARD OF EDUCATION TO CONSIDER POLICY CHANGES

The Cape Girardeau Board of Education will consider moving ahead with revision of its policies manual when it meets this afternoon.

The regular board meeting will convene at 4:30 p.m. at the Board of Education office, 61 N. Clark.

Superintendent Neyland Clark said there's a need to revise the board policies to bring them in line with federal and state laws.

"Last year we started to revise the board policy manual, but because of the budgetary reductions we got bogged down and did not complete the activity," said Clark.

School district officials are proposing to enlist the aid of the Missouri School Board Association in revising the manual. "There are about 2,500 legal items that the board must have in its policies." said Clark.

The Cape Girardeau district is one of three school districts currently seeking the association's expertise in revising policies, said Clark.

The school district would have to pay a fee for the service, based on its size and types of policies. "Our fee is going to be approximately $6,000," said Clark.

That is a one-time fee for updating the policy manual. In addition, the school district would have to pay about $800 a year to the association to keep policies continually updated, he said.

Clark said it's more cost effective to contract for such services with the state association than to have local school administrators and attorneys handle the task.

There are a number of items on today's agenda, but Clark said the policy revision issue is the only major item of business.