Kentucky School Advocate
October 2023
By Josh Shoulta
KSBA staff writer
KSBA’s Policy unit supports all 171 Kentucky school districts in the maintenance of board policies and procedures. As the association wraps up Policy’s 40th anniversary year, it remains clear that the people – not just the product – are responsible for the program’s success.
Dara Bass served in KSBA’s Policy unit from 1984 until her retirement in 2013, including 18 years as director. This, after years of teaching in three different Kentucky districts.
“I think that gave me a sense of what the reality is in classrooms and it can help you when you write the policy,” she said. “My last thought was, how is this going to pan out for kids and their families?”
Likewise, KSBA’s current Policy consultants, a team that has doubled in size since the service’s launch, all hail from education backgrounds. That includes a former history teacher, a former school council member, a current school board member, two former district central office professionals and a long-term KSBA employee who joined the team as an administrative assistant.
Prior to joining KSBA in 2008 as a Policy consultant, Katrina Kinman served in a variety of capacities: a substitute pre-school teacher, instructional aide, school secretary, attendance clerk, administrative assistant to the superintendent and even board secretary.
“That administrative experience, and especially working closely with the board and superintendent in matters of policy, gave me an appreciation for governance best practices,” she said.
An appreciation that stayed with Kinman long after she was named director of Policy and eMeeting services in 2014.
An ad in the fall 1983 Kentucky School Board Journal depicts a cartoon caveman chiseling “the board speaks through its policy” into a slab of rock, going on to promote a new custom policy development service. From there, KSBA’s Policy service was born.
KSBA’s current Director of Policy and eMeeting Services Katrina Kinman and former Director of Policy Dara Bass show a 1984 Mayfield Independent Schools policy update form thought to be the first in the program’s history.Records indicate that KSBA’s first annual policy update was issued in June 1984, to Mayfield Independent Schools. At that time, updates to policies were painstakingly managed with pen and paper. Quite a bit has changed since then. The policy update process eventually moved online and the association’s eMeeting service revolutionized how meetings were managed. À la carte policy services – such as employees, coaches and substitute teachers handbooks – have been added to the offerings. The Kentucky Organization of Superintendents’ Administrative Assistants was formed to offer more comprehensive support to the professionals who work closely with district leaders.While many processes were streamlined, the demand increased exponentially. More and more districts signed on to use KSBA’s service, and new legislation caused the number of board policies to balloon. The Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990 presented a particularly cumbersome challenge for KSBA’s Policy staff. And, in 2000, the General Assembly went from convening every other year to meeting annually, resulting in many more district policy implications each spring.
Bass remembers the Policy Service always having several balls in the air, whenever rolling out a new initiative or making enhancements. That continues today, with the expansion of eMeeting support for school councils, offering a policy audit service and increasing training related to the Open Meetings Act.
“The Policy Service is there to give (boards) a framework to operate their schools as they need to, as they have to and as they want to, but within legal parameters and local decision making,” Bass said.
“I think districts appreciate it.”