The Board of Trustees took a new look at a possible way to revise the look of the Board’s Policy at last Wednesday’s meeting.

Dr. Noelia Vela, Cerritos College president, asked the Board to look at the possible ways they may go about making revisions to Board Policy, specifically the 5000 series. The objective of doing this is to review the policy in place and see if there is a need to make changes to the way they have policy and procedure set up.

Currently, the Board Policy is mixed with both policy and procedure and Board members are looking at possibly separating the two.

Dr. Erlinda Martinez, vice president of Student Services, gave a presentation on how the college and the Board would go about the change.

She said that the templates the college is looking at using come from an organization called Community Colleges League of California, which the college is a subscriber to. The CCLC is a Board Policy and Administrative Procedure subscription service. Also, she added that 57 of the 72 districts in the state receive the service to look at policy.

Many districts have already revised their policies using the guide that they suggest and some neighboring districts are currently undergoing policy review using the guide.

Dr. Martinez talked about the college’s need in differentiating policy from procedure.

“We want to establish the ‘what’ for the policy as in goals and acceptable practices and the ‘how’ as in procedures, rules and regulations, ” she said.

Dr. Martinez said that the Board represents the public and the policy is the voice of the Board. Also, she talked about the responsibilities of the Board and the CEO (Dr. Vela) to develop and implement the policy.

Along with the presentation, Dr. Martinez also talked about who does what as far as policy and procedure.

The Board is in charge of developing a policy that requires Board action, and the procedure part is done by the CEO. Appropriate staff helps develop procedures to implement the policy which will be presented to the Board for information.

There were three areas in the 5000 series that were discussed among Board members. First, Board Policy 5004 which talks about security of the district property, which Dr. Martinez says is mixed with policy and procedure.

She also said that the college’s policy is really procedure.

The template that Dr. Martinez and Dr. Vela suggests that the Board separate the two and make the policy part a clear statement that would be shorter than current policy. The template also suggests adding a reference to the Education Code section that the policy comes from.

Dr. Martinez and Dr. Vela suggest that the policy not have sections within the policy, like the current policy does.

The policy 5005 is quite lengthy, according to Dr. Martinez and the template that is being suggested is only one page.

The last policy in the 5000 series discussed was 5008; that is Driver Clearance the CCLC doesn’t have a recommendation for the Board on that part of the policy.

“We are not suggesting eliminating it from the policy because they don’t have a recommendation, but we are looking into how to revise it,” Dr. Martinez said.

The new policy is a major shift, not in content, but in format of the template. The Board would be able to cross out sections that would not need to be a part of the policy anymore.

Some of the Board members commented on the templates being suggested.

Bob Verderber, vice president of the Board, wanted to know if the Board Policy was online or on a computer. The policy is available online through the college’s web site.

Bob Epple, Board member, said he would like to see the full set of CCLC templates to see what is there and to see if it covers all that ought to be covered.

Bob Arthur, Board member, also commented on the templates by saying, “I am acceptable to the change. At least from this board member’s view I would like to see the procedures that go along with the policy changes.”

Dr. Vela said “they would keep the procedures as they are and then go through them.”

There was also discussion about the policy and procedures being put into two separate books, but that was quickly turned down by the Board.

There was a question about legal issues that may arise with having policy being changed and making sure the employees know what policy is in effect and when it was approved upon. Epple and Eric Gutierrez, board member, would like to consult with legal counsel on some of the issues concerning the policy.

The Board and Dr. Vela decided not to have action on this matter until the next Board meeting.