The need for written policies and a system for keeping them up-to-date and responsive
to change has perhaps never been greater. Both at the state and local levels
of school governance, board members and administrators must deal with and reconcile
conflicting demands from employees, students, community groups, and parents.
They must cope with changing social and economic conditions of our society. And
they must ever be receptive to new ideas and proposals for advancing the cause
of public education. Written policies can help greatly in the management of the
educational enterprise. Once you have become familiar with the contents of the
manual, you should find it to be an invaluable aid and tool in meeting management
responsibilities.
The three-ring binder is used purposely to demonstrate that a policy manual must
be considered a living book - a book that never ends, for policy development
is indeed a never-ending process. New problems, issues, needs, laws, court decisions,
and opportunities for improving policy make it necessary that a policy manual
be kept open-ended. As new policies are written or existing ones reviewed or
reassessed, it is important that the policy manual have the flexibility of a
ring binder in which new pages may be put in and old ones removed.