Risk Management: Big Topic at #NAISAC
This year’s National Association of Independent Schools Conference included what I believe is a record four sessions on risk management — I lead a 3-hour pre-conference workshop on the topic, and then other workshops were conducted by leading attorneys, leaders in experiential schools, experts at United Educators Insurance and a huge variety of school administrators. Risk management is moving onto the radar of schools, which is a good thing — new risks are emerging as learning becomes more individualized, student-driven, and real world-connected. Our teaches are taking students of all ages off campus like never before for a variety of internships, service days, field trips and travel programs. At the same time, sexual misconduct is a concern as data emerges and this generation of students explore sexuality and gender like never before. Here are some common themes that emerged from the different workshops:
Risk Management Is About People, Not Process. Almost all presenters started from the idea that risk management is about good communication between different parts of the school. Attorney Catherine Hansen-Stamp likens it to hubs of a wheel. Risk management needs to be centralized, but communicated seamlessly across the culture of a school to a range of departments and environments. Schools running travel programs need to invest in an annual training of some kind for faculty taking students on extended trips — and this includes athletic departments, which tend to be risk outliers even though they take many kids off-campus.
Sexual Misconduct Is A Top Risk. A common theme is that schools need to take sexual assault very seriously and provide regular training. This iceberg of risk is rising to the surface as data reveals the extent of the issue. United Educators Insurance reports that between 2004 and 2013, 62 percent of their K-12 study abroad claims were for sexual misconduct. Of these claims, 40 percent were related to host family situations. How many schools with foreign exchanges adequately screen and train their own host families, or their host school’s families? Very few. There were a total of seven workshops that touched on sexual assault — apart from the four sessions on risk management noted above.
Keep It Simple, Involve Faculty. Faculty will rarely consult a risk management binder, so the best policies are simple and easy to remember. Checklists also help. But if you really want faculty to buy into your risk management protocols, run a design experience where faculty design the policies and procedures based on their own experience. This approach, where everyone agrees to a standard way of managing a certain risk, is called “Accepted Practices,” and is used by most outdoor education organizations, including NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School).
Use Data to Make Decisions. One of the common mistakes schools make is to confuse perceived dangers (what seems scary) with actual dangers (what can actually harm our students). A good example of this was the frenzy last year over Zika, which caused many schools to cancel their Latin American programs, and the ongoing concerns about terrorism. Neither Zika nor terrorism are statistically significant risks — at least thus far. For study abroad programs, highway travel accounts for a stunning 45 percent of the risk, water-related incidents are 25 percent, and then the other big categories are alcohol, sexual misconduct, falls, sickness, fires, etc. These are rough figures based on databased maintained by the State Department, Forum on Education Abroad and United Educators Insurance.
Debrief, Debrief, Debrief. The best data is created by your own school via careful debriefs. Charlotte Blessing, Director of Global Education at Lakeside School in Seattle, described how her school maintains a Google doc to meticulously record every call she receives related to a travel program. She and her team then debrief every returning instructor and review evaluations from students and parents. At the end of the year, she prepares a report reviewing all incidents and making recommendations moving forward. Few schools debrief their off-campus (and on-campus) risk adequately — and it’s a lost learning opportunity.
It’s On Campus Too. Danny O’Brien, head of High Mountain Institute, said he tells schools leaders all the time that he’d “never trade his wilderness setting for your chemistry lab.” HMI, which runs semester wilderness-based programs, say most of their incidents happen on campus — not in the wilderness. Risk management is about what’s managing on-campus as well, including involved students in the dialogue about how to manage risks and create a safe learning environment.
Learning Involves Risks. As schools, we need to be saying “yes, yes, yes,” to a new range of educational experiences, many of which will happen off-campus. School leaders need to become professional risk managers who speak openly about the inherent risks of different learning activities, and how these risks will be managed — and not fall into the trap of making empty promises about safety. Acknowledging that learning involves risks allows parents to engage in the conversation, and make informed decisions about what they want their child to be doing. Open conversations help schools avoid serious accidents, which cause a school and its board to retreat to a place of fear and saying “no, no, no” to critical learning experiences.
— Ross Wehner, Founder, World Leadership School + TabLab
