One common thread emerged from all the speakers who testified both for and against SB1—the importance of collaboration. A superintendent who testified in support of Senate Bill 1 said it well when she talked about the commonalities between the effective districts and councils. She explained that the one thing they had in common was that there was “collaboration among all of those groups.”  She said that even if Senate Bill 1 passes and the superintendents were given the power to select the principal, she wouldn’t change anything about the current process. 

On November 30, 2021, regulation 701 KAR 5:100 took effect which provides new guidelines for school-based decision making alternative models.  The changes were unanimously approved by the Kentucky Board of Education in April. School councils may add additional voting members, such as students, additional parents, classified staff, and community members to their council’s membership through an Alternative SBDM Application process.

The Kentucky Department of Education has updated their guidance on SBDM elections and now allows parent groups and teachers to hold elections online electronically, in person, or a combination of both. Electronic elections were an option during the first COVID peak, but with this new KDE guidance, the option of electronic elections is available all the time.

1. Select a video teleconferencing* platform that will be easily accessible to your members, the public, and candidates.
2. Send out notice of a special called meeting clearly stating the meeting is a video teleconference,* and make a link available for interested parties to attend. Notify the media if you have requests on hand.
3. Since you will start and end the meeting in open session and go into closed session for interviews and discussion of candidates, you can create two links/logins. One will be for the open portion of the meeting that you share on the agenda/notification with members, the public, and media. Estimate the earliest time you will return to open session and be sure the open meeting isn’t reactivated BEFORE that time; after is understandable.
4. Schedule a different Zoom (or other video platform) log-in link/login for the closed portion of the meeting and share that only with the council members (and any additional person who is an official part of the interview).
5. When returning to open session, record in the minutes that you interviewed and consulted with the council if they were part of the interview.

 If the interview committee doesn’t include the council:

• The interview committee will still need to follow all of the above.
• You will need to have a council meeting for consultation after the interviews.

April 20, 2020 -- KASC advice is in accordance with the KDE email to SBDM Coordinators on 3/26/20; this version has been improved based on discussions with PTA and feedback from member schools.

KASC has received several questions about whether/how to change policies in regard to grading during this NTI period. This is a complex issue that may or may not involve SBDM councils.

KASC Advice on Conducting SBDM Council Meetings

Update: 4/2/2020