Anderson School District Three (SC)

Division Overview
Schools: 5
Employees: 370
Students: 2519

Like a lot of public-school districts, Anderson School District Three (ASD3) in Iva, SC, was struggling to comply with all federal and state safety mandates. Risk management duties were distributed across too many staff members (including nurses, secretaries, and the district’s employee benefits manager) and involved overwhelming amounts of paperwork.

ASD3 knew a more streamlined approach was needed. And, upon learning about PARR, an insurance program that provided a 5% rebate if the district met ten requirements, the district felt an urgency to improve.

“We were trying to figure out how to meet all of these requirements in-house and it was proving to be quite the project to do on our own,” said Emily Jarrard, Accounts Payable at ASD3. “We needed help.”

A NEW SOLUTION SPRINGS FORTH

At the South Carolina Association of School Business Officials’ Spring Conference, Keith Martin, ASD3’s Treasurer of Finance, first met PublicSchoolWORKS. After hearing about the PARR requirements and the potential rebate, PublicSchoolWORKS assured Martin that the EmployeeSafe Suite would help the district meet most requirements.

ASD3 decided to invest in the EmployeeSafe Suite, and a successful relationship blossomed.

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.

While the EmployeeSafe Training System greatly enhances staff awareness of how injuries can be prevented, accidents will sometimes happen. When they do, the Staff Accident Management System responds with maximum efficiency. In the past, reporting an injury at ASD3 required a lot of inefficient paperwork, with too much time passing before all relevant parties were notified. Now, injured employees simply fill out an online accident report in the Staff Accident Management System. Once the report is submitted, key contacts instantly receive the news via email.

What’s more, if the accident is a claim, the system can automatically send the claim to the insurance provider. The district’s Employee Benefits Manager can easily process all accident reports, including the OSHA 300 report, and PublicSchoolWORKS’ reviews all reports to help steer prevention training.

Also, at ASD3, before investing in EmployeeSafe, staff 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.

Lastly, to make operation ASD3 run even smoother, the EmployeeSafe Suite included the EZ Maintenance System, allowing employees to report maintenance issues the instant that they encounter them.

MORE SAFETY, MORE SAVINGS

Investing in the EmployeeSafe Suite not only maximizes efficiency for staff training, accident reporting, and numerous other aspects of school safety. It also saves money.

Implementing the EmployeeSafe Suite allowed ACSD3 to meet eight out the ten PARR requirements. The district then used internal resources to meet the remaining two and was awarded the 5% rebate – $5,000.

The investment in EmployeeSafe helped reduce the number of workers’ comp claims and, consequently, the district’s workers’ comp insurance premium. Most importantly, ASD3 now has a comprehensive and sustainable risk management program that allows its staff to focus more on what they love: helping their young students thrive.