As Nebraska schools prepare to wind up the 2019-20 school year, educators are already preparing for the 2020-21 school year -- whatever that may look like. We wanted to let you know KSB’s plans for policy updates, handbooks, Title IX, and other preparation work for next school year. So open up your calendars, we’ve got some entries for you to fill in!
MAY 29, 2020 - POLICY UPDATE NO. 1
Based on the delay of the Unicameral session, we will have to send out two sets of policy updates this year. (We know, we know….) If you are a KSB Policy Service Subscriber or if you subscribe to our updates, you will receive your first set of updates on May 29, 2020. Our handbook updates for student, staff, and activities will be released after the policy updates are completed.
JUNE 1, 2020 - 10:00 AM 2020 POLICY UPDATE WEBINAR
Like past years, we will be conducting a ZOOM webinar to review and discuss the policy changes and answer questions you may have about them. You are welcome to ask other administrators or board members from your district or ESU to sit in on the webinar if you'd like. There is no limit of attendees from each district or ESU. The webinar again will be recorded and posted to the website for subscribers if you are not able to attend.
JUNE 3, 2020 - TITLE IX WEBINAR
On Wednesday, May 8, 2020, the U.S. Department of Education released the final rule containing changes to the Title IX regulations. We will be holding our initial Title IX webinar on June 3, 2020, 9:00-12:00 CDT. The regulations are set to become effective on August 14, 2020. We plan to cover the following: Overview of the changes in the new regulations; the new definitions for what is covered by Title IX; the new Title IX grievance process and how it will (or won’t) align with student discipline and special education laws, given the fact that it will take several weeks to complete; Board policy decisions and changes you will need to make; administrative processes and decisions you will need to make about receiving, investigating, and deciding Title IX complaints; planning policy updates, handbook updates; and more advanced training for your full staff and staff members who will serve roles in the new grievance process.
If you would like to register, click here.
SRO TRAINING - GOING VIRTUAL
KSB School Law had planned to host SRO/administrator training on June 1-2, 2020 to satisfy the requirements of LB 390 (2019). LB 390 requires assigned school resource officers and school security guards to attend a minimum of 20 hours of training focused on school-based law enforcement. In addition, LB390 requires a minimum of one administrator in each elementary or secondary school where a school resource officer or security guard is assigned to attend a minimum of 20 hours of training focused on school-based law enforcement. This training must be included as part of the memorandum or agreement you have in place between your school and law enforcement entity you work with by January 1, 2021.
LB 390 requires the training to include at least the following: school law, student rights, understanding special needs students and students with disabilities, conflict de-escalation techniques, ethics for SROs, teenage brain development, adolescent behavior, implicit bias training, diversity and cultural awareness, trauma-informed responses, and preventing violence in school settings.
We are in the process of producing this training digitally, in a slightly different format than we had planned prior to COVID-19. We will have more information next week with the first training segments available starting on July 1, 2020. We are setting up a site where you will be able to register, complete the training, and print your certificate upon completion of the 20 required hours.
POLICY UPDATE NO. 2
Like you, we’ve heard that the Unicameral isn’t ruling out resuming in June, but later in the summer (if not the fall) is more likely. There are several bills that have been passed and signed that will require policy changes, handbook changes, or at least consideration from schools and ESUs. There could be additional bills that are passed during the resumed session. And, it’s anyone’s guess what issues may be undertaken as a result of COVID-19.
Once the session concludes, we will complete additional required policy and handbook changes at that time. The main reason for waiting is that bills without emergency clauses don’t become effective until 3 months after the session adjourns. Even if the session resumed tomorrow and finished in early June, those bills wouldn’t become effective until September. We do not want to ask you to implement policies with delayed start dates or confuse your board members about what is required, and when. Speaking of which...
TITLE IX POLICY UPDATE and ADVANCED TRAINING
If the new Title IX regulations are implemented as they were released last week, you will have many difficult legal and practical decisions to make, to be sure. You will need to update policies, handbooks, nondiscrimination notices, forms, and more. We blogged about a brief summary last week, which you can read here. You should share at least these preliminary items with your administrative staff.
We are working on reviewing all of the information released by the USDOE (all 2,100 pages worth) and working on policy and other changes now. However, we are trying to balance several things: the likelihood that Congressional action or lawsuits will be filed to stop implementation of the new regulations; the difficult decisions administrators and boards will need to make after understanding these new obligations; the need to get policies and handbooks updated to be printed and/or prepared for release by July and August; the need to train staff on those policies, specifically; the need to train administrators who will implement the new procedures; and many other considerations.
We hope to have draft policy updates on Title IX to review during our webinars in early June, but we fear putting out updated policies too early. We’re continuing to analyze the best route here, and we’ll keep you posted.
As that timeline becomes more clear, we will also offer more specific suggestions and training for categories of employees who will need it. For example, all of your classified staff will need more detailed training, but that training will be much different than the training your investigators, decision makers, and Title IX Coordinators will need. We don’t think the new regulations will lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all training heading into the school year.
2020-2021 COVID Legal Considerations
Once we get through required or prudent policy updates “as usual” for the year, we also plan to dedicate some time to review NDE’s current guidance (including the Launch Nebraska website) and their response to the Rule 62 petition submitted by ESUCC. We plan to review aspects of our policies and handbooks you may want to review as 20-21 gets closer. We also plan to consider the special education and other considerations you can be thinking of this summer to make life and processes easier as you plan for school reopening--whatever that looks like this fall. We’ll tailor dissemination of that information in a way that makes sense to help our awesome clients.