CSONE | Beyond1

Now more than ever school systems across the country are faced with growing regulations and reporting demands at a time when resources are thin.

Seventy-one percent of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school. This overwhelming statistic puts bullying and student safety concerns at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

With students, faculty, administrators, vendors, security and safety officers, financial officers, parents, bus drivers, food service workers, the community-at-large, the media and so many other concerned constituents, our schools are at the center of the community’s life. As such, schools face layers of mandated laws and operational rules from federal, state, and local authorities that attempt to define the bounds of an acceptable learning environment. These regulations often result in policy decisions, processes, and procedures that must be upheld within the daily operation of the school if the system is to remain “compliant.”

But schools have kids to teach—a task that is hard enough just by itself. How can schools entertain and address the issues or concerns of the broader community without investing massive amounts of human resources and financial capital that simply aren’t available today? Can teachers and administrators truly meet these growing demands in a manner that is efficient and effective while ensuring compliance with growing number of government rules, mandates, and their own policies and procedures?

The simple answer is - yes.

A TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION THAT SUPPORTS YOUR POLICIES AND PROCESSES

CSone was designed to operate as a school-based solution, all the way up to district or even state wide! This case management portal was designed from the ground up to intake, manage, and resolve all types of concerns that any of a school’s constituents may present. However, the solution can also be implemented in modules with each module addressing key concern areas for a school. By defining the issue resolution platform up front, each module can “plug and play” with the compliance environment as they are enabled over time. With the deployment of each new module, the quality of the program expands, the value and impact of reporting and analytics increases, and operational efficiencies are gained. Ultimately the schools get much more value for a smaller investment in time and effort. So, how would this work?

Your school is divided into three major constituent groups: students, teachers/administrators, and community. The case management portal is pre-configured with the concern categories that are appropriate for each constituent group. ETHIX360 can work with your school system to determine the scope of constituents and the concern categories that fit well with your initial program objectives. Bullying, safety, and security are obviously high priority items. The range of capabilities for students to report concerns of bullying, safety, and security are unparalleled. These reporting platforms, including a speak up hotline, are well-branded so they are easy for students to find and use—anonymously, if they choose.

Likewise, there are a number of key capabilities available for teachers and administrators as well. The unique Behavior Incident Tracking feature allows teachers to quickly record behaviors of students. A quick note, accompanied by a picture or other supporting material can be captured in seconds and forwarded to the server, where additional data may be added or where the behavior incident can simply reside to be used in a “related activities” search about that student. With this quick capture of information, teachers can get more done and provide a better environment in their classrooms.

Ultimately, analysis of the behavior incidents at a more macro level could lead to the delivery of support services to this student before it’s too late. This level of information allows the teacher to bring comprehensive, quantitative information to parent meetings and progress reviews that are conducted for this student. Behavior Incident Tracking is a quick, easy, effective way for good teachers to add value to their students’ experience.

The community at large also plays a partnership role with every school system. Just like the employees and business partners of any big business, the constituents of your school community have insights, questions, and concerns that they wish to share with the appropriate authorities in the school. The Community Reporting module can include a speak up hotline, and allows those constituents to report concerns on a virtually unlimited set of topics. These reports can also be made anonymously if the reporter wishes to do so. This process engages the community and helps them understand how seriously the school system wishes to address all of the concerns in an efficient, compliant, and consistent manner. Doing so creates a source of goodwill for the school.

HOW DO WE GET STARTED?

The process is really easy to implement. First we will focus on the “intake.”

Select the programs you would like to deploy – Bullying for example.
Select your targeted constituents – students and teachers would be likely constituents.
Define the program, branding, and access method that will be offered. Constituents can report their concerns via the web, a smart phone or ipad, a world-class CARF certified call center, email, or by simply talking to a teacher or administrator.
Finalize the concern categories that can be reported.

Second, we focus on defining the school’s processes for reviewing, investigating (if necessary), and resolving the concerns that are reported through the case management portal. This resolution management process is the key to efficiency, consistency in resolution, and meeting compliance standards. Schools have sometimes equated the process of getting a bullying report to “having a bullying program.” This simply is not the case. Capturing a report from one of the intake methods is the beginning of an effective program. Intercede can help your school define its process steps so that each concern is reviewed and resolved in accordance with the school’s policies and procedures—producing a compliant result.

This resolution management capability is supported with full data privacy functionality, the ability to “relate” cases, conduct investigations, determine resolutions, initiate “wrap around service” offerings to assist students in need of support, and much more. A resolution management process that is well defined and consistently executed will increase teacher and administrator productivity in many ways. It will also provide the school board the confidence that constituents’ concerns are being addressed in line with the policies that the board has established.

Finally, the resolution management solution provides a reporting platform that can produce ad hoc and scheduled reports with ease. Key word search, flexible query tables, and other techniques allow users to quickly extract information for ad hoc use. Standard reports (for internal and external use) can also be executed on a scheduled basis and provided to the users’ compliance dashboard. This can include mandated reporting requirements for families of students, state government agencies, and others.

GO BEYOND WHAT YOU SEE.