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Dewey Public Schools approves new and revised policies on a wide range of topics, with the student transfers seeing the biggest change.

Superintendent Vince Vincent says the revisions were made to match enacted legislative actions that were made in the spring. Vincent says student transfers saw the greatest change. He says emergency student transfers have been removed on top of other changes.

Every transfer is now considered to be an open transfer. Vincent says there used to be a window for open transfers, but that window no longer exists. He says they are always open to open transfers now.

Requests have to be taken in the order in which they are given to Dewey Public Schools. Vincent says they will time stamp those requests while they make decisions on students that they can accept. He says denials for transfers have been outlined by state law.

Denials of student transfers are possible if one of three criteria is met. Vincent says capacity limits at a certain grade level could be reason to approve or deny a transfer student. He says student discipline issues at a previous school and/or a history of 10 or more unexcused absences within a semester's time period would be justifiable reasons to deny a student transfer as well.

Applications for student transfers will be accepted each year at Dewey Public Schools after July 28. Vincent says they would then act on the applications once they know the July 1student capacity at each grade level and after the new student enrollment date. He says they want to ensure that they are overfilling their classrooms.

There is even an option to put student transfers may be put on a waiting list. Vincent says whether or not they can make real time decisions throughout the years is uncertain. He says they may have to wait and make decisions on a quarterly time frame.

Vincent says Dewey Public Schools is a transfer school as they take in plenty of transfer students. Despite the student transfer process being a year-to-year decision, Vincent says they wanted to be sure that students that have been accepted in the past are guaranteed to stay in Dewey in the subsequent years. He says the do want to grow even if they want to protect the district's capacity limits.

Classroom capacity limits were made as well. Vincent says decisions were made for every grade level, including Pre-K. He says they typically have four teachers per grade level from Pre-K through 6th, with 100 students at each level. Class sizes at the secondary level are anywhere between 25 and 30 students.

Vincent says capacity limits could be changed at a later time if the district chooses to do so. However, Vincent says they feel comfortable with where the capacity limits are set at currently. He says they will continue to navigate through this new territory as best as they can.

Vincent says they had to have a revised policy on student transfers in place prior to January 1, 2022.

Language was changed in several other policies that the Dewey Public Schools Board of Education approved this week. Vincent says they have approved revisions to a policy that states that the Governor can appoint a school board member if a loss of a board member(s) has created a situation where they cannot have a quorum and can't conduct business. He says another revision changed the monetary thresholds when it comes raising the bar on the limits for sealed bids.

Beginning with this year's freshman, there is a requirement that they will take the Naturalization Test. Vincent says they have changed the district's graduation policy to state that students will need to pass that test in order to graduate. He says that test will take place at some point during a student's high school years.

Vincent says another policy change allows students at the age of 18 to have the same rights as their parents when it comes to opting out of things such as questionnaire surveys and more. He says another policy revision revolves around the emergency action plans for DPS's facilities. This revision expanded to school buildings, not just athletic facilities.