CV Board Accepts Guidance Policy
The Central Valley School Board gave final approval to its long-debated guidance policy this week.
The policy will require counselors to consult parents in most cases before recommending outside help for students.
A community and staff committee spent three months developing the policy and established safeguards for parents, counselors and students. The board spent another four hours Monday night pounding out small details before approving the policy.
“There were really no substantive changes,” said Neil Prescott, a consultant who works on policy development for the district.
An example of one of the minor changes is allowing counselors to take action that they feel is appropriate if life-threatening situations exist.
The policy states that students may meet with counselors on any school issues and on non-school issues long enough to help the student understand the situation.
Counselors can only recommend the services of outside agencies to minor students with written parental permission, unless potentially life-threatening circumstances exist. If the parents refuse or can’t give any directions, the counselors then could offer students outside help with the proper approval.
School lunch program
The Central Valley School District’s meal program is definitely not out to lunch, the board learned this week.
The district’s national school lunch program now serves about 55 percent of CV’s 2,821 elementary school students.
The program is also taking off on the junior high and high school level, where it was introduced a year ago and now serves 25 percent of the students with 644 lunches a day.
Before the national school lunch program was introduced on the secondary level, the schools just offered an a la carte program. That program still serves 30 percent of all secondary students.
The district’s applications for free and reduced lunches have increased by 200 this year to 2,200. Elementary school students comprise 29 percent; junior high school students, 19 percent; and high school students, 9 percent.