Caroline County Public Schools (MD)

Division Overview
Schools: 10
Employees: 380
Students: 5,500

Milton E. Nagel, the Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services at Caroline County Public Schools (CCPS) in Denton, MD, knew that something had to change.

Like all public-school districts, CCPS was required by law to train employees on safety topics ranging from bloodborne pathogens to child abuse. And, for years, Nagel’s district had used a free online training program provided by the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE). But the program offered too little.

“We needed more,” Nagel explains. “We’re a small school system that doesn’t have the in-house resources to manage the many safety processes districts are required to maintain. We wanted to find a provider who could help us manage more than just staff training.”

A LUCKY ENCOUNTER

In Las Vegas, at the Association of School Business Officials (ASBO) International’s Executive Leadership Forum, Nagel spoke with us about PSW’s online solutions.

“[They were] telling me what the EmployeeSafe Suite does, and the next thing I know, [they’re] listing all the safety processes our district wanted help managing…and more,” Nagel says. “It would take us to a whole new level of safety and meeting regulatory compliance.”

At the start of the school year, CCPS opted out of the online training courses provided by MABE and started using the EmployeeSafe Suite.

HOW IT WORKS

After the initial set up, the EmployeeSafe Staff Training System automatically emails each employee with links to their personalized online courses. (In addition to courses about bullying and harassment, for example, a chemistry teacher also receives courses about the safe handling of chemicals, while a coach receives training about concussions, etc.)  Each course has a deadline for completion, but employees can complete the courses when and wherever they choose. To ensure employees complete the training in a timely manner, the system periodically reminds them to complete their training before the deadline. If an employee fails to do this, the system automatically sends non-compliance reports to administration.

When using their previous training program, employees often complained about having to take the same courses year after year. So they’ve been delighted to learn how EmployeeSafe differs. With the EmployeeSafe Suite, staff can enroll in a vast catalog of courses, and, after they’ve completed their training, they can, in the years that follow, simply skip to the end-of-course tests to prove their knowledge.

In addition to the Staff Training System, CCPS uses EmployeeSafe’s Staff Accident Management System to report staff accidents. In the past, when a staff member suffered an injury on campus, he or she would have to report it to a secretary, who then had to complete a time-consuming paperwork process. Now, with EmployeeSafe, the injured individual simply completes an online accident report, and the system automatically emails key administrators.

“I used to not find out about accidents for a few days,” Nagel says. “Now I get emailed about new accident reports almost instantly. The online accident report is intuitive and adaptive. It asks the injured person to answer specific questions based on how they answered the previous question, which has greatly decreased our need to follow-up with the injured party to determine what happened.”

At CCPS, before investing in EmployeeSafe, staff also needed to sift through lots of paperwork to properly label and handle chemicals. Now, with the EmployeeSafe SDS Now! System, employees have 24/7 access to online safety data sheets (SDS), which, of course, can be easily printed. Staff can also call a 24-hour hotline manned by chemical safety experts to have SDS emailed or faxed to them, obtain chemical information, or, in the event of an emergency, receive immediate assistance. The district spreads awareness of these resources by hanging posters (provided by PublicSchoolWORKS) that feature the hotline information. Employees also place a PublicSchoolWORKS sticker with the hotline number on the back of their district IDs.

THE BIG REWARD

The comprehensive nature of The EmployeeSafe Suite has made it much easier for Caroline County Public Schools to ensure compliance with regulations and the safest environment for staff and students.

Now, everyone breathes a lot easier.

“I’m a firm believer in ‘you get what you pay for,’” says Nagel. “If we didn’t have PublicSchoolWORKS, we wouldn’t be able to implement a comprehensive safety plan. It is well-worth the investment.”