The safety and protection of our students is our highest priority. The following is a summary of some of the training courses that our employees complete annually.
Sexual Harassment: Student Issues & Response: This course provides school personnel with information about sexual harassment in both student-to-student and adult-to-student situations, background to know the consequences of inappropriate behavior and what might happen when the appropriate action isn’t taken, corrective actions that will help remedy sexual harassment situations in an education environment, related statistical data, and indicators for identifying sexual harassing behaviors.
FERPA: Confidentiality of Records: This course addresses training needs relating to student education records. This course covers important legal terms related to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the general responsibilities of staff members under FERPA, FERPA’s rules regarding confidentiality and disclosure, and the rights of students to access and inspect their own education records kept by the school.
Bullying: Recognition & Response: This course provides users with a better understanding of bullying behavior, as well as their obligations to help prevent bullying. Topics covered include bullying basics, identifying bullying behavior, how bullying works and effective ways to address the problem.
Child Abuse: Mandatory Reporting: This course provides background information on the different types of child abuse/child maltreatment. It offers training scenarios for physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse, identifies indicators to assist in abuse and neglect, states the legal responsibilities of reporting and handling disclosures.
Dating Violence: Identification and Prevention: In this course, staff members learn how to recognize signs of abuse, take steps to prevent abuse and learn the correct procedures to safeguard students.
Youth Suicide: Awareness and Prevention: The goal of this course is to provide staff members with information that will help them reduce the likelihood of suicide among students. This course covers the scope of the problem of youth suicide, common risk factors related to youth suicide, successful strategies for youth suicide prevention, the immediate steps a staff member should take if they encounter a student who is threatening suicide, and best practices for intervention after a suicide (“postvention”).
Bloodborne Pathogen Exposure Prevention: The Bloodborne Pathogen Exposure Prevention course introduces the type, statistics and scope of the disease; guidelines for the clean up and handling of potentially infectious wastes or contaminated materials; the risks associated with workers exposed to BBPs (including vaccination and reporting information); and delivers training designed to emphasize the practices of proper exposure control.
The “Sexual Harassment: Student Issues & Response” training described above does address inappropriate educator student relationships. As a result of the recent allegations of improper conduct by a former high school employee, we are going to require employees to complete this additional training this spring and every year annually:
Sexual Misconduct: Staff-to-Student: This course provides information about the obligation of every staff member to provide an appropriate level of care for all students. Specifically, this course explores the definition of sexual misconduct, the legal obligations of school staff members, signs of sexual misconduct by staff members and how to create clear professional boundaries that protect you as well as students.
We are also going to have a forensic psychiatrist, who is an expert in this field, provide additional training for our employees.
We have a talented, smart and dedicated faculty working here in the Salado Independent School District. The commitment of our employees to the students and families in Salado is strong. We are committed to taking swift and decisive action when it is warranted and work toward preventing any future transgressions.
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