Relations with the Public 7-1

School Board of the City of Virginia Beach
Policy 7-1

COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Relations with the Public

The School Board recognizes citizens' rights to participate in educational decisions and their right to be informed about how pupils are being educated and how school funds are spent. The School Board endorses an affirmative public communication policy and accepts responsibility for keeping the community informed about schools. In cooperation with administrators and teachers, it seeks opportunity to inform individual citizens and organizations about educational services, initiatives, accomplishments, needs, challenges, costs, revenues, expenditures and other pertinent topics.

1. Individual and group opinions, suggestions and questions accepted

   The School Board and Superintendent seek and welcome individual and group opinions, suggestions, and questions regarding school matters. Regular School Board meetings shall be open to the public and to the news media. Closed sessions shall be held only in compliance with state law.

2. Recognition of news media

   School Board Members, administrators, teachers, and staff recognize the news media, VBTV (the municipal cable television channel), the School Division’s website and social media channels to be important means of keeping people informed about school-related news and information. They welcome the interest and assistance of publishers, editors, station managers, and reporters. School Board Members, administrators, teachers and staff desire to provide representatives of all news media with available non-confidential facts about schools. All news releases will be distributed electronically to local news media and will be posted on the School Division’s website for convenient public access.

3. Providing information regarding school related matters

   The Superintendent or designee is authorized and directed to prepare publications needed to keep citizens informed about educational services, initiatives, achievements, needs, costs, challenges, revenues, and expenditures and other pertinent topics. The Superintendent or designee is directed to provide parents, guardians and students at the beginning of each school year the academic objectives, standards of learning, and requirements for graduation as required by the Regulations Establishing the Standards for Accrediting the Public Schools in Virginia. The Superintendent or designee will ensure that each school provides access to to the adult student and the parents/legal guardians of minor students attending the school and to the school community a written School Performance Report Card that complies with the Regulations Establishing the Standards for Accrediting the Public Schools in Virginia.

4. Website accessibility

   To ensure that information on the School Division's website, vbschools.com, is accessible to the greatest extent possible to all site visitors, including individuals with disabilities, the website follows the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. These guidelines were created by the World Wide Web Consortium to set website standards to assist individuals with disabilities. The School Division continuously reviews and updates its website to ensure compliance with current and future standards.

   1. Some pages on vbschools.com contain links to third party sites, which are not within the control of VBCPS and may not comply with accessibility standards. VBCPS is not responsible for the content or accessibility of third party sites. The School Division is in the process of incorporating website accessibility into its procurement process for products or services used on vbschools.com.
   2. Community members who are experiencing difficulty accessing information on vbschools.com, should contact the School Division's Department of Communications and Community Engagement at 757-263-1075 to obtain the information in an alternative format.
5. Maintaining positive relationships

   All School Board employees and volunteers shall seek to maintain positive relationships with students, parents/legal guardians, organizations, and news media, thus helping implement this Policy.

Legal Reference

Code of Virginia §22.1-253.13:7, as amended, Standard 7. School board policies.

Virginia Board of Education Regulation, 8 VAC 20-131-270, as amended. School and community communications.

Related Links

School Board Policy 7-10

Adopted by School Board: October 21, 1969
Amended by School Board: November 18, 1986
Amended by School Board: August 21, 1990
Amended by School Board: July 16, 1991
Amended by School Board: October 20, 1992
Amended by School Board: September 15, 1998
Amended by School Board: May 25, 2004
Amended by School Board: May 9, 2006
Amended by School Board: August 19, 2014
Amended by School Board: January 23, 2018
Amended by School Board: April 30, 2019
Amended by School Board: November 26, 2024