The School Committee shall maintain a current manual of its policies and by-laws, conveniently organized, which shall be available to the public in printed form to be viewed at the Office of the Superintendent of Schools and on-line at www.mps-edu.org.

Suggestions for either new policies or policy changes would normally come from any of the following sources: school committee members, superintendent, citizens or students.

Policies or by-laws proposed, deleted or revised, by the Policy sub-committee shall be first submitted to the full Committee for a first read.

Adoption of new policies or changing existing policies is solely the responsibility of the Marlborough School Committee. Policies will be adopted and/or amended only by the affirmative vote of a majority of the members of the Marlborough School Committee when such action has been scheduled on the agenda of a regular or special meeting.

The Policy Sub-committee will report out to the full committee its recommendations for policies during reports of Sub-committees. A draft policy/revision will be provided to the full committee. The School Committee will not vote on a policy at the same meeting that has been presented for a first read.  Such policies will be placed on the next meeting’s agenda under Action items.

To permit time for study of all policies or amendments to policies and to provide an opportunity for interested parties to react, proposed policies or amendments will be presented as an agenda item to the Committee in the following sequence:

1. Information/Discussion Item - distribution with agenda and first reading of proposed policy or policies; response from Superintendent; report from the Policy Sub-committee which is assigned the responsibility of reviewing all policies; Committee discussion and direction for any redrafting.

2. Review Period: Time between the first reading and the date for adoption for comments and/or input from the public to be reviewed by the Policy Subcommittee.

3. Action item - discussion, adoption or rejection at the next scheduled meeting.

Amendments to the policy at the action stage will not require repetition of the sequence, unless the Committee so directs.

The School Committee may dispense with the above sequence to meet emergency conditions, through a suspension of the rules and a majority vote by School Committee members.

Policies will be effective upon the approval of the School Committee, unless otherwise specified.

Only those written statements so adopted as policy and so recorded, shall be regarded as official policy of the Marlborough School Committee.

Approved: 4/14/15

Approved: 1/28/20

Approved 6/11/24