The Kiski Area School Board is doing a comprehensive review of the district handbook, starting with a new dating violence policy and tweaks to the bullying, hazing and nondiscrimination rules.
The policies were formally introduced on Monday, with a vote expected next month.
The dating violence policy would require principals to investigate complaints and produce a written report. If the inquiry supports claims of violence, principals would recommend discipline based on the student code of conduct.
District Solicitor Ronald Repak noted the district can’t do much about incidents outside of school until Safe2Say Something, a youth violence prevention program run by the state Attorney General’s Office, receives a tip and passes it along.
“Once you get a Safe2Say, then you come inside the district,” Repak said. “Now we take over as, ‘How do we create a safety plan to protect the students?’”
According to officials, there wasn’t a specific incident within the Kiski Area School District or its peers that spurred the policy, other than a recommendation from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
The state allows districts to address dating abuse but doesn’t require it.
On its website, the Pennsylvania Department of Education describes dating violence, whether in person or electronically, as “widespread” and more likely to be interpreted by teenagers as a normal part of a relationship.
“I don’t know why we didn’t have a dating violence policy,” Superintendent Jason Lohr said. “If you look at neighboring school districts, they had it.”
Lohr cited Franklin Regional School District’s policy as a model for his district’s draft.
The board is proposing only minor changes to the bullying, hazing and nondiscrimination policies. The state Department of Education mandates that districts examine certain policies every year or, in the case of the bullying policy, every three years.
Some policies that don’t need periodic updates haven’t been touched since 2006, according to Lohr.
“In general, we’re prioritizing the ones that do need to be submitted every year or every three years to keep in compliance,” said School Director Melissa Kowalkowski.
She’s spearheading the effort to refresh district code on the legislation subcommittee along with Jenna Rowe and Amy Halter. Former Superintendent Misty Slavic initiated the process prior to her departure in March, according to Kowalkowski.
She said some policies, like rules about faxing, have become obsolete and will be phased out. Others might need amended to reflect changes like the rise of generative artificial intelligence.
“I think that the community and everyone will see that over the next few months — if not over the entire school year — different policies will be on the agenda most every month for review and approval just to get where we need to be with a lot of them,” Kowalkowski said. “I think our overarching goal and message is that we’re really trying to be proactive.”
