RV board hears info on student, staff handbook changes

Proposed changes to student and staff handbooks for the 2025-26 school year were outlined during a recent Royal Valley Board of Education meeting. 

The building principals at all three schools - Justin Moore (RVES), Keith Glotzbach (RVMS) and Cassie Geis (RVHS) - presented the proposed new handbooks. Cale Green, RVHS assistant principal and athletic director, also gave a report on changes being made to the athletic and coaches’ handbooks.

Moore has developed a policy for when parents want to visit and observe their child in their classroom.

He also updated the student cell phone policy for the school, which outlines disciplinary actions.

“Cell phones start to become a problem with our fourth-grade students so I just wanted to put something in place that was more concrete,” Moore said. 

At the middle school, Glotzbach said several minor changes were made to some policies, including a few he mirrored after policies already in place at the high school.

Every five tardies will now equal a consequence at the middle school and the high school.

“What we had before was more open ended,” Glotzbach said. 

The middle school student council, which previously included seventh and eighth-grade students, will now include a few sixth-grade students.

This past school year, Glotzbach said there were several issues with students bringing large amounts of food and drinks to the school to store in their lockers. 

“They were getting into those snacks throughout the day and leaving a mess,” he said. “It was already in the handbook that those items weren’t allowed to be brought to school, but I added language that specifically says that’s not allowed to be brought to the school and stored in lockers.”

Geis said the policy for seminar for students who are academically ineligible is being changed. 

“If a student is failing two or more grades, they can only leave seminar for academic support and must have a pass,” Geis said.  

The high school’s previous drug, alcohol and nicotine policy did not align with the current board policy so Geis said she updated that. 

She also wants to add tougher consequences for students who break the policy. Board members and Geis discussed the current consequences and the language of the policy.

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