In the News: SAS Policy Overhaul
Saline Area Schools has been reviewing all its policies as it switches law firms from Neola to Thrun. Neola and Thrun are the largest providers of school policy in Michigan. They provide policy language for school boards to adopt or revise, while also allowing boards to create their own bespoke policies from scratch.
This past Tuesday, at the Saline Area School Board meeting, they had a recommended motion to "to adopt the Rescind/Replace Resolution which recommends that the Board repeal its existing Neola policies, bylaws, and administrative guidelines, with the exception of existing Board policies: [5517.01], concerning student bullying,
and adopt the Thrun Policy Manual, with the exception of Policy 5207 (Anti-Bullying)."
Sun Times News has an excellent article by Heather Finch, with whom I served on the DEIAC. It goes into more detail, and you can find the complete list of policies in this memo.
Many community members, including me, were concerned that some of SAS's bespoke policies would be lost during the switch to the new law firm. We were concerned about Policy 9141 (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee) and Policy 5517.02 (Transgender and Nonbinary Students).
Thankfully, the school board unanimously voted to retain the bullying policy, the transgender and nonbinary student policy, and the DEIAC policy, and to transition all other policies to Thrun. These policies will be discussed during the next meeting of the policy committee.
The next meeting of the Saline Area School Board Policy Committee is 9/14/2026 from 1-3 at Liberty School.
Here are my comments from the first public comment period
I appreciate that SAS provides a 2nd public comment period. This allows me the opportunity to address things that came up during the nearly 3-hour meeting.
Comments