SP-EYE on Sun Prairie Schools: Policies, policies everywhere...

...but how the heck does one find them?

Over the last several years, what have we learned about the Sun Prairie school board? We've learned that they like to talk the talk, but rarely walk the walk. They TALK and TALK about Community Engagement, but they only LISTEN if you come to the microphone to sing their praises or to support their decisions.

They TALK about Community Engagement. They even established a Community Engagement Task Force. More talk. Even less action.

This board of seven elected representatives --key word there--- was elected to LISTEN to WE the people, and support OUR wishes. Well, if they wont listen to us the easy way, then perhaps it's time to get their attention via a mechanism they better understand: their own policies.

Our buddy Webster defines policy as:

1 a: prudence or wisdom in the management of affairs b: management or procedure based primarily on material interest

2 a: a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions b: a high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures especially of a governmental body

We suggest that more of the community needs to (A) familiarize themselves with the school board policies and then (B) hold the board's collective feet to the fire when they violate them (which seems to occur more frequently than situations in which they STICK to their policy. And, if we find policies to be inadequate, unacceptable, or just plain non-existent, then we need to speak up and demand that they be changed.

Wait. Hold the phone there, Zippy. How exactly does one even find school board policies of interest? The board has developed an alien language construct with which to catalog their policies. Making matters worse, their seemingly web-friendly "search our policies" feature actually doesn't limit its search to JUST policies. It searches pretty darn near everything, even pulling up meeting minutes from 5 or more year. How frustrating is it when you want to search on policies using a phrase like "public record" only to find hundreds of matches, none of which is what you seek?

So we need a road map to their policies, don't we? Other schools have clear transparency of their policy manual. SP-EYE checked out several local school district websites as well as districts that are of similar size to Sun Prairie for the comparative ease of finding policies. Surprise! Nearly all had a link to the entire manual on the home page of the district website! Most had a simple numerical system and a complete listing of all policies by section with hyperlinks to the actual policy. For a school district that likes to pat itself on the back for its technology prowess, Sun Prairie falls shamefully far from the mark. Check it out:

Here's Sun Prairie''s system for reviewing policy: