Board Meeting Summer School Policy Tabled

Lizzy Tsuang
Staff Writer

At the Feb 4 board meeting, the Manhattan Beach School District Board of Trustees postponed the discussion of the proposed policy on summer school and online transcript credits.

With the policy tabled, current practices for summer school and online course registration will remain in place for this year’s summer school and online registration.

“The more we have discussed this policy, the more interest there has been in the topic,” MBUSD Superintendent Michael Matthews said. “The board commented several times on the complexity of the issue and those comments must be addressed.”

The board tabled the policy due to growing concerns and disagreements with the current draft. According to board member Jennifer Cochran, the largest concerns with the policy include how it will be integrated at Costa, whom the policy will affect and how the restrictions will be imposed on students.

“It’s a very complicated issue,” board member Ellen Rosenberg said at the meeting. “It’s a very difficult and complex decision to decide what can or can not be allowed on the Costa transcript, because we want to make sure this policy fulfills everything that needs to be met for graduation.”

In order to solve disagreements in the policy, Rosenberg and Cochran formed a subcommittee dedicated to drafting a new policy. They plan to gather input from Costa staff, students, parents and the MBX Foundation.

“We hope to look into monitoring and the integrity of online courses,” Cochran said. “We will also observe how limiting the total number of courses and the amount of courses per department will impact students.”

The subcommittee has not yet delegated how the policy will be implemented at Costa, however they hope to have completed the policy by late Spring or early fall of next year and put it in action for summer school registration of the 2015-16 school year. The final draft is also anticipated to be accompanied by an Administrative Regulation, an additional document that will provide the policy’s information in greater detail.
“With more and more requests, we need to do more research,” board Vice President Bill Fournell said at the meeting. “I think we’re touching on the fact that the board policy needs more direction and communication so it’s clear enough for our students, parents, and staff. We’re hoping for more collaborative discussion to draft a more effective policy.”