Risk Management for K-12 Schools

Risk Management for K-12 Schools

Risk management in schools is the process a school or district uses to identify the risks in its activities, buildings and programs, judge how likely and how serious each one is, put controls in place, and check that the controls work. This article explains that process, gives examples of risk management in schools, shows how to do a school risk assessment, and then looks closely at the higher-risk program areas of science, STEM, CTE and physical education.

In our increasingly litigious world, it is becoming commonplace for people to use the words ‘risk’, ‘hazard’ and ‘liability’ quite interchangeably, which is incorrect, especially when you examine what risk management for K-12 means to a school, or to a whole school district.  To understand how the risk management process can influence our behaviors and choices involving field trips, student sporting events, extra-curricular activities, and even individual classroom teaching, we need to appreciate the multi-faceted role this plays in a school system. Using the context of student-based activities or investigations, teacher demonstrations and the physical learning and teaching environments in phys-ed, science, STEM, and CTE are the focal areas of this perspective as these program areas have inherent risks associated with them due to the hands-on nature of the instructional method and the tools, apparatus, equipment, and chemicals used to meet the curricular expectations for students.  Risk management policies for each school district need to be reviewed often, much like a chemical hygiene plan, and be aligned with the financial, legal, and risk aversion or risk appetite for the local jurisdiction in an effort to minimize risks, maximize safety and be financially responsible simultaneously. 

What Is Risk Management in Schools?

Risk management in schools is a repeating cycle of identifying risks, assessing them, treating or controlling them, and monitoring and reviewing the results. The international standard ISO 31000:2018 describes risk management as identifying, analyzing, evaluating, treating, monitoring and communicating risks across an organization, and states that it can be used by any organization regardless of size or sector (ISO 31000:2018, Risk management — Guidelines). Federal school emergency planning guidance uses the same logic: a school planning team identifies threats and hazards, assesses the risk each one poses, and prioritizes them before writing its plan (Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans, 2013).

1. Identify. List the activities, places and systems where harm or loss could occur, using incident reports, insurance claims, inspections and staff knowledge.
2. Assess. Judge how likely each risk is and how serious the result would be, and rank the risks.
3. Treat or control. Decide for each risk whether to avoid it (do not run the activity), reduce it (training, supervision, equipment, procedures), transfer it (insurance, contracts and proof of insurance from vendors, the “proof” in the 3-P’s described below), or accept it with its educational value in mind.
4. Monitor and review. Check that controls are in place and working, review new incidents and claims, and repeat the cycle at least once a year and whenever an activity, building or law changes.

Communication runs through every step: teachers, coaches, principals, families and the district’s insurer each need to know the decisions that affect them.

Understanding Risk Management

At the root of risk management in schools and school districts today is the guiding mantra of ‘What would a prudent person do in this situation?’ and then a determination is made based on an evaluation of the educational value vs the risks associated with performing that specific activity, that task, or being in that potential learning environment.  It is worth noting that ‘reasonable means reasonable, not perfect’ when evaluating these scenarios. Knowing that educators are expected to perform a hazard analysis for the activities they select for their classes and make a personal judgement call based on the risks contrasted with the educational value of their intended action.  Fundamentally, this is what is involved with professional risk management specialists, who ultimately can shape the curriculum based on case law, precedents, and using formulas and actuarial tables to calculate the likelihood of an accident or injury occurring.   The construct of risk management is not to prohibit teachers and students from having fun or having a memorable experience, but to temper these thoughts with some disciplined safer, and better professional practices and a thorough understanding of the actual risks involved with a particular activity, excursion, or opportunity.  We will explore this in detail after having a more comprehensive understanding of how risk management works in tandem with program services to offer a safer teaching and learning environment across the district.

Risks in the Curriculum

 We can agree that physical education, science, STEM and CTE programs have a higher element of risk associated with them than the humanities or a mathematics programs, simply due to the access to hazards such as equipment, apparatus, chemicals, dissection specimens, tools, machinery, and raw materials found in these areas. Then layer in the dimension of the students using the apparatus and equipment for the first time and you can visualize the risks in these gymnasiums, classrooms and laboratories.  Therefore, having a formalized safety training program is extremely important for both the educators and the students because this is a mechanism that risk managers refer to as a ‘reduction’ since all involved will have a greater awareness of their surroundings and have an understanding about standardized operating procedures and emergency procedures in the event of an accident or injury.  Risk managers often refer to the ‘3-P’s’ which are: Policy; Procedure; and Proof.  The policy is in place to help inform safer choices, and most school districts have standard operating procedures for almost all aspects of the school daily activity cycle for academics, athletics, field trips, and other parts of the school day, and the proof which is ‘proof of insurance’ from a vendor, supplier, or contractual risk transfer or waiver of liability situations.  This is the essence of what risk management looks like in a school district setting. 

The greatest risk is exposing students to hazardous conditions, environments, or activities which many new educators or administrators feel are ‘acceptable’.  Would it be a reasonable expectation for students to have a thorough understanding of the various tools and machinery in a CTE laboratory on their first day of class?  Is it reasonable to expect students to know the biological or chemical hazards in their STEM program in the first week of the semester? How about students participating on a high ropes adventure course as a field trip?  Honestly, there is a need for a calibration device that could be used here since it is quite varied and depends on the person, the region, and other factors. This is where a noticeable problem exists today and there is absolutely a need to re-calibrate people on what is a legitimate risk.  This has been partially created due to the inconsistencies across the school system, and not all jurisdictions manage similar risks in similar ways. 

What compounds this problem is also the reality that many people overestimate or underestimate ‘risk’ or ‘exposure’ because they are unaware of the actual ‘real’ risks are – which increases liability.   Having standardized educational or training programs will help to stabilize this and provide some consistency as a benchmark.  Insurance carriers are very skilled at this aspect of risk identification and also into risk mitigation because they have seen similar scenarios beforehand from other school district jurisdictions. Luckily, in science, STEM and CTE, there is a mechanism for making these judgement calls involving safety, risk, and liability called a ‘hazard analysis and risk assessment’.

Risk Management and Safety

You should understand this before reading onwards. Risk Management DOES NOT APOLOGIZE FOR SAFETY.  Safety for those most precious assets, our students, our children, and our loved ones is something that is expected from all layers of the school system from the district office to the principal’s office to the classroom door and even onto the school bus.  While some people may be upset or disappointed about safety protocols and procedures, these rules are in place for a reason, often as a result or an accident or injury from a similar activity in the past.  Most jurisdictions use a risk matrix tool that evaluates the risks and the potential for accidents or injuries.  Much like seatbelts in a car, which are in place to protect the occupants of the vehicle in the case of a motor vehicle accident.  Most people can reduce risk by removing hazards and modify the proposed activity to accommodate this removal or reduction of an original element of the scenario.  Once this assessment is completed, it should be communicated and shared with others to establish modified procedures and policy that allow for these ‘safer’ activities including the accommodations and changes, which is what insurance companies typically do for their member school districts to facilitate decision making through the lens of compliance and safety first. The risk management matrix tool is a dynamic resource that changes and evolves as new activities are evaluated so that better and safer choices can be made in the future.  

How to Do a School Risk Assessment

A school risk assessment scores each risk on two scales, likelihood and impact, and multiplies them to decide which risks need attention first. The federal school planning guide describes a similar approach, assigning index numbers on a scale such as 1 to 4 for probability, magnitude, warning time and duration, and then ranking each threat or hazard as high, medium or low risk (2013 federal guide, Step 2 and Table 2). A simpler likelihood-by-impact matrix suits most classroom, field trip and building decisions.

The scale is an example; a district should define its own words and thresholds and use them consistently.

A worked example. A middle school plans a field trip to a river for a water-quality lesson.

• Identify: the risks include a student falling into fast water, slips on wet rocks, a student becoming separated from the group, and transportation.
• Assess: falling into deep or fast water is judged unlikely (2) but severe (4), a score of 8, high. Slips on rocks are possible (3) but usually minor (1), a score of 3, low.
• Control: sampling only from a bank or a shallow, slow section chosen on a pre-visit; no wading above the knee; life jackets for anyone near the water; a stated adult-to-student ratio; a head count at every move; a first aid kit and a charged phone with the group; permission forms with medical information.
• Re-assess: with those controls, falling into fast water becomes rare (1) with the same severe impact (4), a score of 4, medium, which the principal accepts against the lesson’s educational value.
• Record and review: the assessment is filed with the trip approval and reviewed after the trip, including any incident reports.

The same method underlies the hazard analysis and risk assessment that science, STEM and CTE teachers perform for activities and demonstrations, described later in this article.

Understanding Risk Management

To make the whole topic of risk management easier to understand, here are some of the key takeaways for you from this important tenet of the education and insurance relationship.   From discussions with active Risk Management Officers from school districts we have compiled some of their comments here related to what risk management means to them.

• Risk management is not always the big picture, but in the FINE PRINT – which is where the details are!
• Risk management is about assessing the educational value vs the inherent risk for activities involving staff and students.
• Asking questions to validate if the activity is age / stage / ability appropriate and looking for any recent accidents or injuries.
• Asking if there can be any modifications made to reduce risk that will allow for the activity to occur?
• Are there any possible injuries that can be foreseeable? Is there a history of injuries and what controls are in place to reduce the risk?
• Will proper supervision offset the risks? What is the optimum number of adults to students (ratio) on a field trip or excursion?
• Is there a banned list of activities? Is there an approved list of activities?  These are both excellent ways to provide safer guidance for decision-making.
• Avoidance is the only 100% effective method to reduce risk but it is not always the best learning environment for students.
• You should be able to identify risks and avoid doing things that have high risk, low educational value, and if these cannot be reduced, managed or controlled, they should not be allowed.

It is a reality today that many school district staff, including teachers are younger – and are making personal choices for a ‘perceived healthy lifestyle’ on their social media networks, however these activities typically involve risk-taking activities which is a problem.  Numerous recent events have resulted in injuries or death from people looking for that great photo or image from a spectacular vantage point.  These once-in-a-lifetime images often involve equally risky behaviors.  Take for example the activity known as ‘Zorbing’ where you roll down a hill in a large plastic bubble.  What could go wrong with an activity like this?  This is something that appeals to many people with a larger appetite for risk, but should this activity be endorsed or supported with students on a field trip excursion as part of a school program?  The mindset shift from what is perceived as acceptable to what is ‘actually’ acceptable is where that prudent person test is especially valuable in making a distinction between risk and reward.   

Examples of Risk Management in Schools

Examples of risk management in schools range from playground inspections to cyber security. The table below gives one example of a risk and a control in each common area, and the role that usually owns it; the right owner in a given district depends on its size and structure.

The federal government publishes school cyber security guidance and a toolkit for districts through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA, K-12 Cybersecurity). Emergencies such as intruders, severe weather and lockdowns are managed through a school’s emergency operations plan, which the School Safety guide explains.

Elementary School Risk Management

Elementary school risk management applies the same process to younger children, who are less able to recognize a hazard or follow a complex instruction, and who depend more on adults for supervision and care. The areas that most often need attention are:

• Supervision at transitions: arrival, dismissal, recess and lunch, when students are spread out and adults are stretched thin.
• Release to authorized adults: a checked list of who may collect each child, and a procedure when someone not on the list arrives.
• Playgrounds: equipment suited to the age group, surfacing that is maintained, and supervisors placed where they can see the whole area.
• Health conditions: allergies, asthma, diabetes and seizures, with individual plans that travel with the child to specials, field trips and substitutes.
• Classroom science and art: age-appropriate materials, eye protection where needed, and adult handling of anything hot, sharp or chemical.
• Field trips: higher adult-to-student ratios, name tags without full names on the outside, and a head count at every move.

Formalized Safety Training for Risk Management for K-12

There is another dimension to this risk management discussion which needs to be addressed, which is formalized safety training.  Safety training and awareness for teachers, principals, and students is a control measure that can reduce risk, but it is often overlooked.  According to Dr. Tyler Love and Dr. Ken Roy in their 2021 survey of schools from across the USA, made some key findings including the reality that 35% of science, STEM and CTE educators have NOT had any formal safety training in either their faculty of education experience or at the school district level when they were first hired.  Safety training is a legal requirement wherever federal OSHA or a state OSHA plan covers a school’s staff (federal OSHA does not cover state and local government employees, so coverage of public-school teachers depends on the state), and yet there is a large gap of safety trained teachers to address.  Unfortunately, it appears as if the mindset of having an adult in the classroom and overlooking the lack of safety training is a reality of the teacher shortage being experienced across the country.   Another key finding from the Love/Roy study was that a teacher with formal safety training is 49% less likely to have an accident in their program.  Not having teachers properly safety trained is not a good risk management practice and one that has implications for the students and the staff involved.  Is it reasonable to assume that teachers who have minimal background in safety can make prudent choices when it comes to performing a safety review (hazard analysis and risk assessment) and do they know what to look for? 

Many experienced classroom teachers struggle with this practice and some educators are more concerned about making memorable events for their students than about making these ‘safer’.  Recently, in Virginia, a science teacher with 15 years of experience was performing a demonstration using methanol and it ended badly with students and the teacher being taken to the hospital for burns sustained during this event.  And if this can happen with an experienced science teacher, imagine the additional risks that can accompany a new teacher without any formal safety training or actual hands-on experiences to reflect on, to make these safer choices in science, STEM or CTE for themselves, colleagues, and students.

Science programs have many legal regulatory rules to be followed and legislation that mandates certain aspects of teaching in a laboratory such as the OSHA’s Laboratory Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1450, which requires that employees, teachers included, are trained at the time of their initial assignment to a work area where hazardous chemicals are present and before assignments involving new exposure situations.  It also requires that a chemical hygiene plan is written and reviewed annually (at a minimum), a designation for a Chemical Hygiene Officer (a vital role in risk management) and literally hundreds of additional rules specifically regarding the safer operation in a laboratory and associated chemical store room at the school.  The HazCom standard is used for the CTE rooms and has additional responsibility for the employer and the employee.  Successful risk management involves a comprehensive understanding of these and many other safety aspects that are designed to keep people safer.  An important risk management pillar is to reduce risk and increase awareness and the use of student safety acknowledgment forms combined with a personalized, progressive, grade and discipline-specific safety training on the hazards in the program (science, STEM, and CTE).

 To summarize the role of risk management in CTE, science, and STEM there are some critical aspects to ensure the safer learning environment for students.  The use of a safety acknowledgement form in all classes is a great first step, especially when used with formalized, specific safety training for everyone in the school ecosystem which can drastically reduce risks and the potential for accidents or injuries.  Having educators perform a safety review based on their planned activities where they evaluate the risks and make a determination including modifications to their initial thoughts by evaluating the risks and comparing to the educational value of the activity is one of the most important criteria in risk management in these program areas.  By having a more transparent conversation about safety and risks in schools, and communicating what are actual risks vs. perceived risks and creating a matrix for making these assessments available for principals evaluating field trip safety and for the classroom teacher who can use that same methodology when choosing age and stage and ability appropriate activities for their students, the overall risk management strategy against a Science Safety Risk Management Framework will be a natural part of the pedagogical process that is woven into the culture of safety awareness in the district from the boardroom to the classroom.  Most people do not consider this aspect of school district safety until there is an injury or an accident, but risk management is a vital component to a balanced educational experience for students and staff.

Who Does Risk Management in a School District?

Risk management in a school district is shared, and works best when each role knows its part.

• The risk manager. Where a district employs a risk manager, that person keeps the list of the district’s risks, manages insurance and claims, and advises on contracts, field trips and events. The federal planning guide includes the risk manager among the district leaders involved in fiscal recovery after an emergency (2013 federal guide). A district without a dedicated risk manager should name, in writing, who holds these duties.
• The insurance pool or carrier. A district’s coverage comes from an insurance carrier or a pool shared with other public entities. As this article notes, insurers have seen similar claims in other districts and help member districts identify and reduce risks; their coverage conditions and claims data should feed the district’s own assessments.
• Principals. Principals apply district policy in their buildings: approving field trips and events, making sure incident reports are completed and reviewed, and following up on hazards.
• The safety committee. A district or school safety committee, with staff from facilities, transportation, nursing, athletics, science and administration, reviews incident patterns and inspection results and recommends changes.
• Specialist roles. The chemical hygiene officer, athletic director, school nurse, technology director and transportation director each own the risks in their area, as the examples table above shows.
• Teachers and coaches. Teachers and coaches make the daily judgments, using the prudent person test and hazard analysis described in this article, and their incident reports are the evidence the rest of the system relies on. edCircuit’s article on school incident reporting explains what a good report contains.

Materials to Review:

• Love, T. S., Sirinides, P., & Roy, K. R. (2022) Examining Factors Associated With Accidents in Career and Technical Education and STEM Education Labs – A National Safety Study Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA
• A Science Safety Risk Management Framework

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