NOTICE: We provide these bylaws in various languages for convenience only. The only valid version is the English version.
Administration | Voting & policies | EDASCAL Activities | Marketing & Promotion | Employment practices | Definitions | Notes
100.100 The administration of EDASCAL shall consist of four geographic levels: local, regional, national and international. If no entity exists on any of the aforementioned levels, the NHA shall administer the lower level. Each level shall consist of either a single person or a group of people. Every such person shall be referred to as the geographic level of administration and acknowledgment of involvement in a group within the region, if applicable, followed by "director".
100.200 No employee, chairperson, volunteer or associate may retain any conflict of interest that is undisclosed to any party involved. The conflicting party has the burden of proof of notifying all other involved parties, in writing, of the conflict(s) of interest. Any approval or disapproval must be made in writing.
100.210 If a conflict of interest is inevitable, the NHA shall dictate the response to the conflict of interest. If the international director has a conflict of interest, all of the next lowest director(s) or staff shall dictate the response to the conflict of interest. Each co-director or each staff member shall have one vote in the dictation.
100.220 All directors who wish to pursue resource benefits from EDASCAL must notify the lowest non-conflicting director of any conflict of interest. This non-conflicting director must approve resource disbursement in writing before resources can be disbursed to the conflicting director.
100.300 No single person or entity shall receive more than 10% of the funds from the same or lower administrative level(s) as the recipient, not counting funds processed by other offices of the same level, PROVIDED that all applicable Federal, State, County, City, Neighborhood and Tribal laws shall overrule this code as needed.
100.400 An administrative level's NHA shall have the duty of appointing directors at the next-lowest level. All directors shall have the duty of managing employees, volunteers, associates and vendors.
100.500 In the event that a director's position is eliminated, its NHA shall appoint a new director by vote within 30 days of the position being vacated. All directors have the authority, but not the obligation, to appoint a director pro tempore or a group of directors pro tempore in the event a director position becomes available. If the International Director position becomes available, the International Director position shall be filled by majority vote of all National Directors, counting each group of co-director within a single nation as one vote.
200.100 All individual people who are officially designated as a member, employee, volunteer, director or approved contributing partner may vote on issues arising from time to time. All groups of people or other valid entities who are officially designated as a member or approved contributing partner may cast a single vote on issues arising from time to time pursuant to the codes of the group and pursuant to EDASCAL codes. Voters must have a valid EDASCAL number and complete Form 1937, Official EDASCAL Ballot.
200.110 Each authorized person who submits a valid ballot may only vote one time for each issue. In the event that more than one ballot is cast, the most recent valid vote to be submitted shall take precedence over all other votes, thereby rendering all prior votes on that issue null and void, but shall not be the sole basis of invalidating the remaining votes on the ballot.
200.200 All people receiving services from EDASCAL who have been assigned an EDASCAL number shall be entitled to vote pursuant to these codes. All pre-approved significant contributing entities shall be entitled to vote pursuant to these codes. All employees, volunteers and administrative staff, salaried or unsalaried, shall be entitled to vote pursuant to these codes.
200.300 If an issue directly pertains specifically to administrative staff, whether salaried or unsalaried, the administrative staff shall not vote. If such a vote has been submitted, the vote shall be rendered null and void pursuant to these codes. This shall not be used as the sole basis for invalidating votes on other issues contained on these ballots.
200.400 When an issue has been approved for voting per code 210.100, the issue shall be available for voting on the following Monday not later than 12:00:01 PM Universal Coordinated Time. Authorized voters may vote on the issue until 11:59:59 PM Universal Coordinated Time on the 31st calendar day following the start of the vote. Votes shall be tabulated within 7 days. If the issue passes, the issue shall take effect 15 calendar days after the votes have been fully tabulated. If a technical or other issue impairs voters' abilities to submit a valid ballot, a director shall extend the voting deadline by an amount of time that is not less than the amount of time in which the technical or other issue occurred.
200.500 All votes submitted to EDASCAL shall be as confidential as feasibly possible and shall not be unduly disclosed or promulgated.
210.100 Proposals to amend, remove or modify the policies contained herein or any portion thereof shall be made to the local director using Form 1638, Proposal to change policy. Proposed policies may not address two or more distinctly separate issues within the same proposal. Within 15 calendar days, the local director shall analyze the feasibility of the proposal. If the director believes the new policy is not clearly malicious in intent, the local director shall elevate the issue to the next highest level of administration. This elevation shall repeat as necessary. Once the issue has been sufficiently elevated, the issue shall be placed to a vote pursuant to section 200 and all other applicable codes.
210.110 If the director believes the proposed policy is insignificant, the NHA may approve the policy for immediate implementation. A National Director has the right to approve insignificant policy changes on the international level.
210.120 The director is authorized, but not obligated, to temporarily validate a policy similar to the proposal pending the outcome of the vote. If the vote results in non-passage of the policy, the validation of policy under code 210.120 (1) shall immediately become null and void.
220.100 Any time a code is added, removed or is changed, the code shall note the date the addition, removal or change took effect.
220.200 Upon revising any document generated by EDASCAL, the date of revision shall be accurately noted on the bottom of the document. This date shall reflect any change regardless of significance.
230.100 All official codes shall be printed in the English language. Codes written in a language other than English shall be provided for convenience only and are not official. All copies of codes that are not printed in English shall so disclaim.
300.100 All persons who have been convicted of, pled guilty to, have been accused of, or have committed a felony, gross misdemeanor or misdemeanor criminal or civil offense on the Federal, State, County, City, Neighborhood or Tribal level in any jurisdiction shall qualify for disbursement of benefits. Priority may be given to individuals who EDASCAL or its directors deem would realize a lower reoffense risk upon receipt of benefits, PROVIDED that this priority shall not disqualify individuals who would otherwise qualify.
300.110 If additional resources allow, EDASCAL may, but is not obligated to, provide benefits to people who have not committed a criminal offense but believe receipt of benefits would reduce his/her elevated risk to engage in future criminal activity, PROVIDED that all persons who have been convicted of, pled guilty to, or have committed a felony or misdemeanor offense shall have priority over persons who have not been so adjudicated.
300.200 Discrimination on the basis of the type, class, or felony/misdemeanor status shall not be tolerated, PROVIDED that reasonable safety concerns nor legal mandates shall not be considered discriminatory.
310.100 All budgets approved by EDASCAL administration shall be proportioned within the same EDASCAL jurisdiction.
320.100 All reasonable efforts must be made to accommodate individuals who are incapable of registering for or receiving benefits. This shall include translations, second- or third-party completion of forms, and use of a sign language or foreign language.
330.100 EDASCAL, its associates, agents and representatives are strictly prohibited from engaging in activity that could reasonably be expected to serve or enhance the mission of a disqualifying entity. Upon discovery of a violation of this section, the violating party shall forfeit all rights, privileges and possession of and to enhancements, salary, resources, funds, gifts and benefits to the fullest extent allowable by law, and all forfeited enhancements, salary, resources, funds, gifts and benefits shall immediately be returned to EDASCAL with no prior notice required if allowable by law or as otherwise designated by law. This provision may not be amended, edited, removed or overruled except as expressly permitted in writing by the International Director.
340.100 EDASCAL is organized exclusively for charitable, religious, educational, and scientific purposes, including, for such purposes, the making of distributions to organizations that qualify as exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or the corresponding section of any future federal tax code. EDASCAL shall not engage in any activity that violates these purposes.
340.200 No substantial part of the activities of EDASCAL shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and EDASCAL shall not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. Notwithstanding any other provision of these articles, EDASCAL shall not, except to an insubstantial degree, engage in any activities or exercise any powers that are not in furtherance of the purposes of this corporation.
340.210 Employees, volunteers, associates, partners, director, chairperson, vendor, contributing partners, beneficiaries, clients, other organizations, groups, companies, people, corporations, or limited liability corporations who represent or are otherwise acquainted with EDASCAL may, but are not obligated to, engage in political activity outside of EDASCAL and may not represent EDASCAL at the immediate time of such activity. Any mention of EDASCAL shall accompany a note that EDASCAL does not endorse, promote, or organize such activity.
400.100 Requests for funds of greater than $50 for marketing purposes must be approved by the regional director.
400.200 Any recipient of direct marketing may unsubscribe at any time through the web site, in person, by telephone or by mail. All such requests must be processed within 7 calendar days. All opt-out requests shall be made up to and including international contacts.
400.210 All EDASCAL offices must amend their opt-out list and/or update their opt-in list with the applicable international, national, regional and local lists within 30 calendar days of the most recent update.
400.300 Unless required by applicable law, EDASCAL, its representatives, employees, volunteers, associates, partners, directors, and significant contributing entities are prohibited from releasing any information regarding any client, recipient of benefits, or program enrollee to any person, business or other entity without written authorization from said client, recipient of benefits, or program enrollee. This includes personally identifiable information (including but not limited to name, address, contact information, age, height, weight and race), but does not include general demographic information (including but not limited to general population statistical information).
500.100 All requests to add paid employees shall be approved by the NHA. Requests to add volunteers do not need to be approved by the NHA. Requests to replace staff within 60 days need not be approved. Requests to add paid employees following layoffs promulgated by administration require approval by the NHA regardless of elapsed time since administrative layoffs occurred.
500.200 All applicable Federal, State, County, City, Neighborhood and Tribal laws shall apply in all employment practices.
500.300 EDASCAL shall not cite gender, age, religion, creed, national origin, race/skin color, sex or gender of sexual preference, disability or gender identity as justification, in whole or in part, for refusing to employ, for terminating employment of, for denying services to, or for otherwise representing or being associated with EDASCAL, PROVIDED that other reasonable, verifiable justifications may be made that may be more common among one or more of the aforementioned classes, except where prohibited by law.
600.100 The following words and phrases shall be defined as follows in all codes, unless otherwise specified:
Crime: Any offense that, in the jurisdiction in which the offense was prosecuted, in the jurisdiction in which the offense occurred or in the jurisdiction in which benefits are being sought, is a felony, gross misdemeanor, or misdemeanor of any class.
Disqualifying Entity: A person, group, or other entity with a history of grossly violating human rights and/or otherwise violating EDASCAL's mission. EDASCAL shall maintain a list of disqualifying entities.
Employee: A person who receives financial compensation in exchange for his or her time spent maintaining and enhancing the operation of EDASCAL. This does not include unpaid staff.
Jurisdiction: The area of administration or enforcement. This can refer to government jurisdiction or EDASCAL jurisdiction. Many EDASCAL local jurisdictions may comprise one regional jurisdiction, many regional jurisdictions may comprise one national jurisdiction and many national jurisdictions may comprise one International jurisdiction.
NHA: Next-Highest Administrator(s). This is used to describe the person or collective group of people who are one level higher in the administration hierarchy, but does not refer to a part of a group of directors unless otherwise provided in the code. EXAMPLE: If a region has one director and a local office has one director, the Regional Director shall be the NHA of the Local Director.
Person: Any individual person or group or class of people.
Significant: Noticeable or detectable to a minimum of 20% of people in a class and intentionally adjusts and/or violates the intended meaning. Properly noted and updated recodifications, enforcement and notation of properly approved intent, and minor adjustments to spelling and/or grammar are not considered significant.
Staff: Paid or unpaid Employees or volunteers whose time is directed to the maintenance of EDASCAL. This shall not include time allocated or used for the direct contribution of money or other tangible or intangible assets. Paid or unpaid employees or volunteers whose primary position is that of acquisitor of assets shall be included as staff per se.
600.110 Pluralized words shall have the same meaning as singularized words. Singularized words shall have the same meaning as pluralized words. "He", "his", "him" and other masculine references shall have the same meaning as "she", "hers", "her" and other feminine references. "She", "hers", "her" and other feminine references shall have the same meaning as "He", "his", "him" and other masculine references.
600.200 All monetary units mentioned in these codes are in US Dollars unless otherwise noted.
600.300 EDASCAL shall maintain a copy of notes regarding the codes in question. These notes are not automatically to be considered integrated with these codes, but rather are provided for clarification purposes only.
600.400 All reference to a numeral within parentheses immediately succeeding a referenced EDASCAL code refers to the sentence number whose number is stated within the parentheses.
100.100 Example: If EDASCAL has an aggregate total of one office, the same person may administer EDASCAL on an international, national, regional and local level and be referred to as "local director", "regional director", "national director" and/or "international director". If, as an example, 5 people administer EDASCAL in a certain region, each of those people can be referred to as "regional co-director".
100.200 Example: If a regional director gains membership of an anti-crime board, the regional director must notify the national director. The national director or international director must approve this conflict of interest in writing before the regional director may convene both activities. Approval by an NHA is acceptable.
200.300 In the text "This shall not be used as the sole basis...", the word "This" is inferred as referring to the nullification and voiding of the administrative issue, as referenced in the previous sentence.
600.100 A local chapter of a federally recognized 501(c)(3) organization had previously decided in a board meeting to exclude an EDASCAL member from their group on the sole grounds that he/she disclosed information pertaining to his/her irrelevant criminal conduct while clearly demonstrating remorse and accountability for his/her actions. This undignified dehumanization without consideration of the person's overall mental health while safety hazards are absent is inexcusable, hence the inclusion of this organization as a disqualifying entity.
600.400 Code 210.120 refers to "code 210.120 (1)". This refers to the first sentence of code 210.120 ("The director is authorized, but not obligated, to temporarily validate a policy similar to the proposal pending the outcome of the vote.", as of January 2, 2009), absent the remainder of the code ("If the vote results in non-passage of the policy, the validation of policy under code 210.120 (1) shall immediately become null and void.", as of January 2, 2009).