CSDC has updated our sample policy intended to serve as a starting point for schools offering independent study.
The newest version of this sample policy reflects the latest legislative amendments including changes contained in AB 181, the 2022-23 education omnibus trailer bill. (For more on the 2022-23 adopted state budget, check out CSDC’s recent Adopted State Budget Webinar, which contains CSDC guidance on a variety of topics, including the new “hold harmless” provisions available to charter schools.) By law, the required board-adopted independent study policies must contain a growing list of elements, and the newest are included in this updated sample policy.
This sample policy is one of dozens of customizable documents included in CSDC’s Sample Charter School Governing Board Policies, a repository of the major policies California charter schools are required or are otherwise recommended to have in place.
As with all Sample Charter School Governing Board Policies, the policy may be customized, and should be adopted during the open session portion of the governing board meeting.
Sample Charter School Governing Board Policies is an exclusive benefit available at no additional cost to CSDC Member Schools. Learn more about CSDC Membership here.
The updated Independent Study policy can be found in the “Curriculum & Instruction” section or by clicking here (sign-in required).
Update: August 8, 2022: After updating this policy on July 26, 2022, CSDC has posted a second, updated version (filename numbered v2.3) of our Sample Governing Board Policy regarding Independent Study.
All of the 2022 changes are shown in redline, with these second round of changes also highlighted in yellow to allow those who had already updated their policy based on our prior version to quickly identify the second round of changes.
This second round of changes address/clarify the following matters:
- Students participating in independent study for fewer than 15 days in a school year are not subject to requirements for live interaction, synchronous instruction, tiered re-engagement, nor the 5-day “return to classroom” mandate,
- The prior law mandating schools to conduct in-person pupil-parent-educator conferences has been softened from a “shall conduct” mandate upon the school to “may request” verbiage, presumably simply deleting any mandate upon schools to conduct such conferences and instead simply authorizing parents to request them,
- A few additional technical changes and corrections.
