Sacramento County District Takes School Safety Training Online
The San
Juan Unified School District in
Sacramento (CA) County is taking all of its mandated school safety
training
online.
Previously,
the state-mandated courses the 5,000
educators at 65 sites had to take were conducted in live sessions at
each school
site by third-party trainers. School administrators had to keep track
of which
employees had completed the training using paper-based training logs
and spreadsheets.
"When
it was time for our employees to complete
their mandated training, we were challenged with being able to do so in
an easy
and concise way, and in a manner in which we could follow up and ensure
accountability," said San Juan USD Assistant Superintendent of Human
Resources
Paul Oropallo.
That
changed when the district implemented PublicSchoolWorks' EmployeeSafe suite of online
products.
A
sexual harassment course can now be deployed
online and taken individually by staff members when convenient. A
second
mandated course on reporting incidents of child abuse can also be taken
online.
Staff
members are automatically e-mailed a link
to the training course. In addition, the system routinely sends
reminder
e-mails to employees who have not yet taken the course and then
automatically
reports to administrators when the courses are completed. Eventually, a
district-wide report goes to human resources representatives telling them
which
employees may still not have taken the course. At that point,
principals and
other supervisors are informed.
"We're
still in our infancy with
PublicSchoolWorks, but because of how successfully we deployed these
two
training courses, we have high hopes for the 2016-17 school year,"
Oropallo
said.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.