§ 16-2-9.1. Code of basic management principles and ethical school standards.
(a) School committees shall adopt the following code of basic management principles and
ethical school standards:
The    (District)   does hereby establish a code of basic principles and ethical standards
for school committee members acting individually and collectively as boards of education
in the management of the public schools of    (City or Town)   .
The school committee in    accepts the obligation to operate the public schools in
accordance with the fundamental principles and standards of school management, which
principles include but are not limited to the following:
(1) Formulate written policy for the administration of schools to be reviewed regularly
and revised as necessary.
(2) Exercise legislative, policy-making, planning and appraising functions and delegate
administrative functions in the operation of schools.
(3) Recognize their critical responsibility for selecting the superintendent, defining
his or her responsibilities, and evaluating his or her performance regularly without
directly engaging in administrative processes.
(4) Accept and encourage a variety of opinions from and communication with all parts of
the community.
(5) Make public relevant institutional information in order to promote communication and
understanding between the school system and the community.
(6) Act on legislative and policy-making matters only after examining pertinent facts
and considering the superintendent's recommendations.
(7) Conduct meetings with planned and published agendas.
(8) Encourage and promote professional growth of school staff so that quality of instruction
and support services may continually be improved.
(9) Establish and maintain procedural steps for resolving complaints and criticisms of
school affairs.
(10) Act only through public meetings since individual board members have no authority
to bind the board.
(11) Recognize that the first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the
students attending the public schools.
(12) Work with other committee members to establish effective board policies and to delegate
authority for the administration of the schools to the superintendent.
(13) Avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest, and refrain from using the
committee position for personal gain.
(14) Attend all regularly scheduled committee meetings as possible, and become informed
concerning the issues to be considered at those meetings.
(b) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to limit or interfere with the rights of teachers
and other school employees to collectively bargain pursuant to chapters 9.3 and 9.4
of title 28 or to allow any school committee or superintendent to abrogate any agreement
reached by collective bargaining.