Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation Prioritizes School Safety and Implements PublicSchoolWORKS EmployeeSafe Suite

The district upgraded from the Staff Training System to the EmployeeSafe Suite this year to further spread awareness about school safety and reduce risk districtwide  

Cincinnati, OH (May 31, 2017) — Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation (PHM) in Mishawaka, IN is no stranger to the benefits of moving processes from a paper format to an electronic one. The district had been using online staff training from PublicSchoolWORKS for five years. This year, however, the district chose to move to online reporting, investigation and resolution of school safety concerns, staff accidents, hazards, and more using the award-winning EmployeeSafe Suite from PublicSchoolWORKS. Integrating these processes with the online staff training system has increased safety awareness across PHM schools, reduced risk, and helped to put more money into the classroom.

For five years, PHM used PublicSchoolWORKS’ online Staff Training System to ensure employees completed federally mandated safety training courses such as bloodborne pathogens, and additional courses such as slips, trips and falls, proper power tool usage, lifting techniques, and more. The online training helped spread awareness about common safety concerns and put a focus on accident prevention districtwide. This helped reduce district risks and injuries, which allowed the district to lower its risk management retention funds by nearly $100,000 at one point. 

“This is our first year using the entire EmployeeSafe Suite, but after seeing such a big impact with the online training alone, I’m most excited about the online staff accident reporting,” said Mike Seger, the Director of Safety and Student Services at PHM. “The ability to easily identify what types of accidents are most common across the district will help us strategically deploy the online training courses our employees need to reduce injuries.”

Now using the EmployeeSafe Suite, PHM staff members complete an online accident report in the Staff Accident Management System. Once submitted, the system automatically notifies designated administrators to investigate and address the hazard that caused the injury and it also auto-alerts key parties such as the central office and insurance providers of the situation.  All reports are housed in the PublicSchoolWORKS safety portal, which makes identifying trends or compiling reports a seamless process.

Similarly, staff can report safety hazards or “near-misses” online so the maintenance department can fix any unsafe building or grounds conditions before they cause injury. Seger has also been promoting EmployeeSafe’s online chemical safety data sheets (SDSs) and chemical safety hotline to staff. This has helped spread awareness about how to safely handle chemicals and how to properly address a chemical spill in order to reduce injury and damage to school property. 

PHM is also using EmployeeSafe’s Compliance Task Manager to automate the scheduling, notification, tracking and completion of all required safety tasks. Leading up to the task deadline, the system sends reminder emails to assigned employees to complete the task. In the event a task is not completed, the system automatically notifies the appropriate administrator to follow-up with the employee to ensure it gets completed.

“PublicSchoolWORKS assists our risk management process and helps promote a culture of safety across the district,” said Seger. “This helps minimize the frequency and severity of losses. The money we would be spending on accidents and premiums can now go back into the general fund and support student instruction.”

About PublicSchoolWORKS
Since 2000, PublicSchoolWORKS safety compliance management solutions have focused on helping schools easily meet ever-changing compliance requirements, improve staff and student safety, cut costs associated with risk, and reduce administrator and staff time and effort. PublicSchoolWORKS is the only, complete K12 safety compliance management program created by and for schools, and is proud to provide districts with award-winning technology and support recognized by North American educators. For more information on how PublicSchoolWORKS can improve district safety programs, contact 1-877-779-6757 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

###