By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

At a meeting this month, the Worcester County Board of Education approved brief changes to school system policies.

Regarding the Local Advisory Council for Career and Technical Education, formerly the Advisory Council for Vocational Education, any mention of the term ‘vocational’ was officially replaced with ‘career and technical.’ According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, the updated language is broader, encompassing more diverse pathways.

“To reflect the changing nature of this type of education, we no longer use the term ‘vocational education,’ but instead ‘career and technical education (CTE),’” the ACTE website reads. “CTE gives relevance and context to learning by emphasizing real-world skills and rigorous, yet practical knowledge anchored within a selected career focus.”

Worcester County Public Schools has used ‘career and technical’ instead of ‘vocational’ for some time. The official policy update reflects the language used by the system’s educators.

In the same document, the career and tech high school principal’s role in the Advisory Council for Career and Technical Education, a group tasked with advising the system on CTE programs and developments, was altered. Rather than serving the body in an ex officio capacity, the leader will now act as a committee member.

“We feel that the principal’s voice is an important voice to be heard on that committee and they should be an official member,” WCPS Chief Operations and Academic Officer Annette Wallace said.

An amendment was implemented to the student attendance policy. The death of a stepsibling was added as a lawful cause of absence, which also includes the passing of a parent, a stepparent, a sibling, a grandparent, an aunt, and an uncle.

The system also changed how school attendance hours are calculated, as mandated by the state for reporting purposes. Previously, the WCPS policy stated that a child present for four or more hours would be marked as present all day, two hours to three hours and 59 minutes was deemed present one-half day, and less than two hours was considered an all-day absence.

This language was modified to include the percentages. Now, present all day is constituted as being in the building for 51% of the time, a half-day is considered 10% to 50%, and an all-day absence is less than 10%.

“What we had to go to was a specific way of calculating school attendance hours,” Wallace said. “This gives the actual percentage that matches up with the report that we need to give to the state.”

An additional wording change was also made to the attendance policy. The phrase, “for a given subject or course at the high school level, five unlawful absences during any one grading period,” was adjusted to replace the language of ‘grading period’ with ‘course term.’

Wallace said that this modification does not alter the policy’s intent. The system currently uses ‘course term’ in PowerSchool, the software that manages and stores student information. The revision is simply meant to align the official document with the language already in place.

Revisions were made to the school vehicle behavior policy. The word ‘bus’ was replaced with ‘school vehicle.’ Additionally, item E, the amendment that stated that in the case of alcohol, drugs, or smoking violations on a school bus, the principal shall deny bus transportation to the offending student twenty consecutive school days for the first offense, forty consecutive school days for the second offense, and the third offense, transportation shall be denied permanently, was eliminated.

The specific consequences were removed, and violations will instead be dealt with as specified in the policy, which reads, “In cases of misconduct, the principal shall, in addition to denial of school vehicle transportation, take appropriate action, which may include suspension or expulsion.”

“Essentially, the focus is to create a policy and direct the superintendent to create the specific things that come after it,” Wallace said. “Taking that out is in the spirit of the way that policies are intended to be written.”

The policy revisions were approved unanimously by the board of education.