Cambridge is not the only city trying to update its school department policies. The Education Reform Act of 1993 redefined the role of school committees in Massachusetts and assigned new responsibilities to superintendents. That meant existing policies on everything from personnel to procurement were outdated.

Since the act was passed, Hardy has seen a "huge increase" in committees wanting to rework their rules. MASC has worked in the past with 70 committees out of the state's 331 school districts and is currently working with 16 more.

He says Cambridge was more up-to-date than many other districts he has worked with. Some districts have not looked at their policies since the early 1970's.

"Cambridge had done a good job at drafting policy," he says. "It was just the filing system that made it so cumbersome."

Hardy met with committee members regularly--even weekly--for much of the last three years to organize the policy. Now, he says, all of the policies are organized into an easy-to-follow alphabetical system.

Even with the outdated policies deleted, Simmons says the final project is "mammoth," totaling more than 1,000 pages. She says every member should read through the document several times before adopting it.

"It's not what you'd call light, recreational reading," she concedes.

The committee had planned to adopt the policies earlier this month. But those plans have been put off indefinitely, several school committee members said.