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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Success

Another great interview!   This time Rick speaks with Scott Schumacher, Principal of St. Peters Lutheran School in Columbus, Indiana.  Scott is a true leader who is dedicated to building trust and forming strong relationships with his students and staff in order to keep his school safe. Below is a quick excerpt from the interview.  To listen to the full conversation and learn some valuable insights from Scott click here!   Why did your school see a need for an anonymous incident reporting system? Over the years, we know that our school like every school has had some instances where students have bullied others.  We areRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, School Safety, Uncategorized

  Earlier this month, Awareity released our 2013 Student Safety Report – What Students Know and School Administrators Don’t. To request the full report click here. The findings outlined in the report provide administrators with the validations and evidence they need to justify immediate action. Just think how much safer every school would be if all students were equipped with the right tools to report incidents and concerning behaviors. Just think what a difference it would make if School Officials were equipped with the right tools to collect information, connect all the right dots, investigate, perform threat assessments, intervene, monitor, and proactively prevent reports fromRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, School Safety

  Rick recently sat down with Homer Public School’s Secondary Principal Randy Pirner to learn more about their school safety efforts and use of TIPS.  As a small rural school in Nebraska, we are definitely impressed with Homer’s leadership and their innovative efforts to keep their students safe! Below is a quick excerpt from the interview.  Click here to listen to the rest of Principal Pirner’s Lessons Learned!   Why did your school see the need for a proactive prevention program like TIPS? Principal Pirner: We found that we had an issue with bullying; not a significant number, but we had a total disconnect fromRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Uncategorized

  Earth Day has been celebrated since 1970 and was created to broaden the support for environmental programs and community awareness to promote environmental citizenship. So in honor of Earth Day…I am offering everyone a tip that can help your organization with “going green” and “saving lots of green”. Wouldn’t be great if your organization could eliminate: Paper-based handbooks (employee, student, vendor, etc.) Paper-based manuals (policies, procedures, plans, etc.) Paper-based documentation (acknowledgements, agreements, etc.) Paper-based training Paper-based memos and alerts Paper-based updates Paper-based incident reporting Paper-based investigations Paper-based incident management Paper-based CYA   And just think about all of the labor-intensive cost savings your organizationRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Emergency Management, Incident Reporting, Risk Management, School Safety

  Did you see the recent report from the Center for American Progress?  The report estimates that the Virginia Tech tragedy cost the university and taxpayers $ 48.2 million.  And this cost does not include the “costs” associated with the loss of lives and lives that were changed forever. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and I hope all school and university administrators are paying close attention to this wisdom and this new report. According to the report, the university was responsible for most of the costs – $ 38.77 million – and the state of Virginia paid around $ 8.87Read More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Education, Human Resources

  As budgets grow tighter…how many school Superintendents would approve the following expense requests? Expense Request A: I am submitting a request to spend thousands of dollars to print up thousands of pages of information that no one will read… Expense Request B: I am submitting a request to spend thousands of dollars for software, hardware and personnel to support the software and hardware so we can upload documents on our intranet that no one will read… Bottom lines are getting crunched because schools are still spending thousands and thousands of dollars on printing, distributing and updating Student Handbooks, Teacher Handbooks, Employee Handbooks, Department Binders, CodeRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Risk Management, School Safety

  I read a couple online articles recently that boggled my mind.  The title of a recent blog from ZDNet was: Does cyberbullying exist, and is technology to blame? My responses: Does cyberbullying exist?             YES Is technology to blame?                NO Blaming technology for cyber bullying is like blaming the swing set or the teeter totter for playground bullying. Cyber bullying is very real, very hurtful, very serious…and only the tip of the iceberg. The effects of bullying and cyber bullying on students can lead to suicide, loneliness, low self-esteem, aggression, vandalism, weapons, truancy, lawsuits and much more. Student safety is a HUGE passionRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Human Resources, Information Security, Regulatory Compliance

Awareity’s CEO/President, Rick Shaw, is planning to share his knowledge and expertise at several upcoming events in the Lincoln/Omaha area.  October 13 – HRAM Omaha October 15 – AITP Omaha November 19  – AITP Lincoln March 17 – ARMA Lincoln Previous blog posts and every day headlines reveal organizations are struggling to keep up with escalating complexities.  So how can lessons learned help organizations keep up more effectively and efficiently? Rick will discuss real world examples and case studies to share proven steps organizational leaders can use to implement lessons learned and improve management efforts across all appropriate personnel – no matter how many departments,Read More →