Even with nearly 21,000 employees, the Palm Beach County School District says its workforce is a team, or one big family.
But the idea of family isn't to be taken literally, so anti-nepotism rules are in place to forbid employees from directly supervising their relatives.
Vowing again to maintain a fair workplace, the School Board this week agreed to revise its policy on nepotism for the fourth time since it was enacted in 1976.
The latest update lifts a ban on employees from managing relatives working in their chain of command, a practice called "indirect supervision."
This restriction never applied to the district's 12,000 teachers, and officials agreed it made sense to eliminate it for all other workers.
"That provision didn't apply to the largest part of the workforce," said Mark Mitchell, director of compensation and human resources planning. "Why do we want it at all?"
The policy keeps its focus on preventing managers and School Board members from directly overseeing their relatives, or making decisions that impact their jobs, promotions, demotions, and annual evaluations. This covers full-time, part-time and temporary employment.
Relatives are defined as parents, siblings, spouses, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, step and half relations — and any people living under the same roof. A new addition to the rules states relatives include registered domestic partners.
