Policy Manual

One of the central responsibilities of the Board of Trustees is to set policy. On July 19, 2002, the St. Vital and St. Boniface School Divisions formed the Louis Riel School Division. Since that time, the Board of Trustees of the Louis Riel School Division has merged and amended legacy division policies and, when necessary, developed new policies for one divisional policy manual.

Effective September 19, 2006, the Division's schools now reference the Policy Manual of the Louis Riel School Division as the single source of divisional Board policy.

The Structure of Louis Riel School Division Policies

The Louis Riel School Division uses the policy code of the National School Boards Association, which classifies policies into Sections “A” to “L”, according to their purposes. For example, all policies related directly to students are in Section “J”, while policies that relate to the Division’s staff are in Section “G”.

Every policy of the Louis Riel School Division has three parts:

• Policy Statement
  This part outlines the values and beliefs that guide the policy and the reason(s) that the Board of Trustees believes the policy to be necessary.
• Guidelines
  These statements describe specific conditions guided by the policy (e.g. to whom and which situations it applies, any exceptions to the policy, and other general conditions).
• Procedures
  These very specific details describe how the policy operates (e.g. timelines for certain actions to occur, who is responsible for certain actions in the policy).
• Some policies may have an Appendix, which is a document that provides added specific information or background research that assists schools to administer the policy.

How can I obtain copies of Louis Riel School Division policies?

The Louis Riel School Division uses an on-line policy manual to allow changes to policy as needed and to be environmentally responsible. Schools and their communities only receive hard copy policy drafts to provide input until the Board of Trustees adopts the policy after a process of three readings.

Community members who require a hard copy of an adopted policy may print it in their homes from the Website, or request a copy from their community school or the Board Office.

The Policy Manuals of the legacy divisions do not appear on the divisional Website. However, hard copies of both Policy Manuals as they existed at the time of amalgamation are available at the Board Office to serve as historical documents.