Lessons Learned from Joe Paterno and Penn State
Posted In Campus Safety, Incident Reporting, Legal, Risk Management, School Safety on January 23rd, 2012 Tags: Incident Reporting, joe paterno, Penn State
With the recent passing of football coach, Joe Paterno, Joe he can now rest in peace knowing he touched the lives of many as a coach at Penn State for 62 of his 85 years on this planet.
The horrific scandal at Penn State University will no doubt have an effect on the legacy of JoePa (his nickname suggesting his fatherly quality to his players and students too), some will judge JoePa based on what they know and others will judge JoePa based on what they don’t know.
For me, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Joe Paterno for his foresight and humility to do an interview with the Washington Post before he passed away. You see this interview could and should become one of the most valuable lessons learned for college leaders and organizational leaders around the world. JoePa shared how he felt inadequate to handle the situation that was brought to his attention:
“I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” Paterno told the Washington Post in an interview published Saturday. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”
“I called my superiors and I said, ‘hey, we got a problem I think. Would you guys look into it? Because I didn’t know, you know … I had never had to deal with something like that. And I didn’t feel adequate,”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/14/us/pennsylvania-paterno-interview/?hpt=us_c1
So what lessons learned did Joe Paterno’s interview provide?
First, if Joe Paterno worked at a college over 60 years and was not clear on university procedures and felt inadequate to do the right thing…how many people in your organization feel inadequate? Have you equipped everyone to do the right thing? This is a significant lesson learned that exposes how 20th century tools (binders, handbooks, annual training, intranets, etc.) can leave your people feeling inadequate and ill-equipped to do right thing as 21st century challenges, risks and situations are changing continuously and the consequences of not doing the right thing can be devastating.
Second, Joe Paterno also revealed in an interview: “In hindsight, I wish I had done more.”
College leaders, school leaders and organizational leaders must take immediate and proactive steps to equip their people with 21st century tools to ensure no one feels inadequate, but is equipped to take appropriate actions. No one wants the burden of wishing they had done more when it comes to helping a child, a friend, an employee or anyone in their community.
Click here to learn more about proven and award-winning 21st century tools.
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Alibis Don’t Save Lives or Prevent Bullying
Posted In Legal, Risk Management, School Safety on November 15th, 2011 Tags: Anti-Bullying, bullying prevention, New Jersey Bill of Rights, New Jersey Coalition for Bullying, Richard Bozza, Stuart Green
When it comes to anti-bullying efforts, most seem to be in agreement that we need to do something about bullying. It is everyone’s moral obligation to lookout for the safety of students and do the right thing. However, in New Jersey, there is a debate on new legislation and school requirements.
On November 1, 2011, the Executive Director at New Jersey Association of School Administrators, Mr. Richard Bozza, submitted an ‘Opinion’ piece discussing the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights that started by saying, “THERE’S NO question about it. We need to do something about bullying.”
Mr. Bozza’s opinion also stated the unfunded mandate requires schools to meet a long list of requirements. Mr. Bozza’s opinion referenced several concerns with implementing the law including an 18-page compliance checklist, paperwork, reviews and legal expenses.
On November 8, 2011, Mr. Stuart Green from the New Jersey Coalition for Bullying submitted his counter ‘Opinion’ saying. “Addressing bullying is not a matter of money. It is a moral obligation.”
WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT BULLYING…SO WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?
The solution begins with equipping everyone with the right tools they need to prevent bullying. Schools need innovative tools and platforms that replace inefficient, ineffective and expensive status quo approaches that Mr. Bozza describes.
For example, traditional training approaches are expensive and time consuming. However, innovative web-based tools cost MANY TIMES LESS than the expenses schools are incurring with paper handouts, trainers, facilities, overtime and lost productivity costs.
Yes, paperwork costs are expensive, so why are schools creating more paperwork these days?? Innovative platforms eliminate paperwork and improve efficiencies and improve results.
Yes, legal fees are expensive, but anti-bullying policies are needed with or without the law, so WHY wouldn’t the New Jersey Association of School Administrators provide templates with customization guidance to their members??
Delays from scheduled school vacations, staff vacations and police involvement…once again the status quo approaches Mr. Bozza refers to are inefficient, ineffective and expensive. Innovative tools empower School Safety Team members to securely login from anywhere and review incidents as needed without delays. Innovative tools enable School Safety Teams to easily document actions, investigations, prevention efforts, follow up efforts and review previous incidents saving tremendous amounts of time, resources and money compared to traditional approaches.
The steps in the 18-page checklist Mr. Bozza mentions should already be taking place in schools, however an innovative platform of tools can equip school personnel to save time, money and resources.
The bottom line is that schools are spending too much time, resources and money on traditional approaches that lessons learned clearly show are not working. Schools can both reduce their costs and “do something about bullying”. I expect more from leaders, because alibis do not save lives…or money.
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The Next Federal Investigation – Minnesota School District
Posted In Campus Safety, Education, Education, Legal, School Safety on July 20th, 2011 Tags: Anoka-Hennepin, bullying, Bullying Incident Report, bullying lawsuit, Cyberbullying, deliberate indifference, Harassment, Notre Dame, OCR Dear Colleague, Seth Walsh, Tehachapi Unified School District
In case you missed it, federal authorities are investigating “incidents involving harassment and bullying” in Minnesota’s largest school district.
The civil rights investigation is underway in Anoka-Hennepin, a suburban Minneapolis school district, and based on the seven-month “landmark federal investigation” that recently ended involving Tehachapi Unified School District in California, the Office of Civil Rights is serious about protecting the rights and safety of students.
School leaders at every school in the U.S. should be taking a serious look at their ability to prevent the preventable involving harassment, bullying, cyber bullying and other alarming trends in schools. School leaders should review their ability to prove they are following guidance outlined in the October 26, 2010 Office of Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), because recent resolution agreements make it clear the OCR is enforcing the DCL that was sent to K-12 schools and Higher Education institutions too. (A federal investigation was just completed at Notre Dame too)
One suicide is one too many! The federal investigations at Tehachapi and Notre Dame involved student suicides and at Anoka-Hennepin, there have been a string of 7 suicides in less than 2 years.
Now is the time to lead by example, not with words or new policies.
Now is the time to replace outdated status quo methodologies with 21st century platforms that empower schools (leaders, faculty, staff, students, parents, community members, etc.) to prevent the preventable.
Now is the time to start doing more than the minimum necessary.
Now is the time to start listening, investigating, intervening, preventing and making a difference.
To request Awareity’s 3 page Executive Briefing on the recent Landmark Investigation to share with your schools leaders and administrators, please visit: http://www.awareity.com/public/briefingrequest.asp
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Who is Responsible for the Ethics of an Organization?
Posted In Human Resources, Legal, Regulatory Compliance on June 30th, 2011 Tags: Agilent Technologies, Business Ethics, Ethics Program, Ethics Training, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
I recently came across a discussion between Markkula Center for Applied Ethics’ Executive Director Kirk Hanson and Craig Nordlund, former general counsel of Agilent Technologies. Nordlund believes the concern for ethics must be shared by everyone in the organization, but suggests ethics programs will be ineffective without leadership from the company’s top executives.
It is hard to argue with his comment stating “ethics programs will not work unless there is leadership on ethics from the company’s top executives”.
However, lessons learned and incidents seem to clearly reveal that leadership from the company’s top executives is not enough.
So why is creating an ethics culture so difficult for organizations? Perhaps ethics training is not enough or not even part of the solution?
The definition of training is a process to teach or learn a skill or job…and like the title of the article (Creating an Ethical Business Culture), I would agree that ethics is more of a culture than a job or skill.
Training is typically a once-a-year task on a learning management system with a one-size-fits-all general training module that everyone clicks through aimlessly because it is on the checklist of items that their organization thinks they need to do.
The definition of awareness seems to be a much better fit if an organization is serious about creating an ethical business culture. Awareness is to be aware of the difference between two versions, watchful and wary and having or showing realization and perception or knowledge. Awareness is not taught once-a-year, awareness (especially situational awareness) is an ongoing process that must be specific to the organization’s culture and supported by top executives.
Every individual is part of the ethical business culture so organizations must also make sure they have a platform to manage, update, communicate, document and measure situational awareness at the indiviidual level…because most everyone knows if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.
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AML Fine Sends a Message to Banks
Posted In Financial, Information Privacy, Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Validations on May 3rd, 2011 Tags: AML, Bank Secrecy Act, bank security, Pacific National
Miami-based Pacific National was fined a $7 million penalty for violations to the Bank Secrecy and USA Patriot acts.
Lessons Learned: Fines for gaps in AML practices are becoming more severe. Financial organizations must ensure they have the appropriate policies and procedures in place and ensure their people are aware and accountable for their decisions to meet ongoing compliance requirements. Organizations also need legal-ready and audit-ready documentation to avoid expensive fines, lawsuits, and embarrassing headlines.
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Va. Tech Gets Max $55K Fine for Late Warning
Posted In Campus Safety, Education, Legal, Regulatory Compliance, School Safety, Validations on April 19th, 2011 Tags: Clery Act, Clery Act Violation, Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech was fined the maximum fine allowed under the Clery Act of $55,000 for waiting almost two hours before warning students, faculty and staff of an active shooter on campus.
Lessons Learned: Colleges and Universities must develop, implement and follow clearly defined policies and procedures for notifying students and staff in emergency situations. School Administrators may want to create customizable, organizational and situational specific templates prior to an incident so the warning messages are already defined and the appropriate processes are understood by all appropriate personnel. Organizations must also have customized emergency and crisis management plans and ensure all individuals (students, faculty, staff, administration, law enforcement, etc.) understand their roles and responsibilities before, during and after an incident occurs. Lastly, lessons learned clearly teach schools that proactive and prepared prevention efforts are much less expensive than the incidents, fines, lawsuits and reputational damages.
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Bullying Reporting Requirements – Lack of Documentation can Lead to Significant Costs and Failures
Posted In Incident Reporting, Legal, Regulatory Compliance, School Safety on December 29th, 2010 Tags: bullying, Cyberbullying, Incident Reporting, Massachusetts Bullying Law, Phoebe Prince
In a recent Boston Globe article, several Massachusetts school administrators discussed how they were implementing (or not implementing) the new state requirements for bullying.
The new anti-bullying law can potentially expose schools — and individual staffers — to lawsuits by parents or state authorities if incidents of bullying are not handled properly.
One of the key requirements is for school leaders to thoroughly investigate all reports of bullying and document actions taken. One superintendent claimed, “I like to keep the informal stuff in my head.” But, keeping informal reports and incidents in one faculty member’s head provides no documentation of a student skipping school, claiming harassment online, being bullied in the hallway, etc. and can potentially expose this school to a lawsuit down the road. What if a young boy commits suicide tomorrow and all of the teachers and staff who witnessed him being bullied numerous times had not come forward and reported the incidents?
As one school psychologist, said, “Consistently documenting problems to make sure none fall through the cracks can potentially prevent tragedies like the high-profile suicides of Phoebe Prince in South Hadley and Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover in Springfield…It strings together a series of events that in isolation may not seem like a big deal but could be if you put them together, maybe then a story is told.’’
Because bullying is typically not a one-time event for the bully or the victims, it is critical for school leaders and team members to understand there is more value in having documentation than not having documentation. Awareness is critical, and sharing information among P.E. teachers, faculty, janitors, students, parents, community members, etc. can often help identify at-risk students and connect the dots to determine the full extent of a situation. School leaders and employees must also be held accountable for reporting incidents so red flags do not continue to be ignored.
All incidents must be documented and thoroughly investigated if schools want to protect their students and provide a safe learning environment ongoing.
Among the values of comprehensive documentation are better decisions, better prevention, better intervention, reduction of liabilities, better compliance and a better bottom line because every situation has a cost (money, time, resources, reputation, etc.) and the lack of documentation could lead to significant “costs” with:
- Prevention failures
- Intervention failures
- Listening failures
- Trust failures
- Lack of Legal Defensibility
- Deliberate Indifference
- Non-Compliance
- Lack of Lessons Learned for future reference
- Monitoring failures
- Lack of Follow Up
- Lack of Behavioral Analysis
- Failure to Connect the Dots
Implementing proactive prevention tools is also much less expensive than the losses that occur if a student loses their life.
To learn how your school can improve documentation efforts immediately and ongoing click here.
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Is Your Incident Reporting System Putting Your Organization At Risk?
Posted In Emergency Management, Human Resources, Incident Reporting, Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, School Safety, Workplace Violence on November 11th, 2010 Tags: bullying, Cyberbullying, deliberate indifference, incident reporting system, Red Flags, threat assessment
How is your incident reporting system working for you?
Or perhaps the question should be – Is your incident reporting system working against you?
Lessons learned continue to show that organizations find themselves in ‘reaction mode’ more than they are in ‘prevention mode’. How can this be when most every organization claims to have an incident reporting system in place?
Are traditional incident reporting systems obsolete?
Multiple surveys reveal that 90% of bystanders who witness a bullying incident DO NOT report the incident. So why aren’t bystanders not reporting incidents?
Perhaps bystanders are not reporting because of one or more of the following reasons:
- Scared to get involved
- Not sure how to report incidents
- Not comfortable with incident reporting options such as paper, in person, phone or text
- Lack of anonymity when reporting incidents
- Bystander does not trust the incident reporting system will work
- Bystander does not trust the organization will take action
- And many others…
Victims are also reluctant to use traditional incident reporting systems. Victims want to be heard, but many victims do not trust traditional incident reporting systems due to:
- They tried using the traditional incident reporting system and nothing happened
- No anonymous option to report incidents
- Not knowing who was on the other end of the incident reporting system
- Afraid their information would not be kept confidential
- And many others…
Like bullying and cyber bullying, workplace violence incidents seem to be increasing too. Mounting stress related to economic challenges, job layoffs and mortgage foreclosures continue to affect millions of individuals and families. And some individuals have taken out their frustration on their bosses, their co-workers or their family members where they work….and many of the incidents could have been prevented based on red flags that were discovered after the incident.
Suicides and bullycides seem to be increasing too. According to statistics from support organizations, 5,000 teenagers commit suicide a year and perhaps as many as 500,000 or more teenagers contemplate suicide or attempt suicide each year. What if these 5,000 teenagers had a trusted incident reporting option they could have reached out to for help?
So is your traditional incident reporting system really working for you if bystanders are not reporting incidents and victims are not reaching out for help?
Red Flags and Prevention
Without red flags, it is nearly impossible for security teams and threat assessment and intervention teams to prevent incidents from happening. Yet after almost every bullycide or workplace violence incident, people come forward and say they were aware of multiple suspicious incidents and red flags, but did not report the suspicious incidents because they did not know how to or did not understand what suspicious activities should be reported. In some cases, people DID report the incidents and unfortunately the organization did not connect the dots.
Legal Defensibility
In our highly regulated and litigious society, victims and their families are taking organizations to court when they fail to respond as mandated. Many lawsuits brought against organizations cite “deliberate indifference” or the conscious or reckless disregard of the consequences of one’s acts or omissions.
Deliberate indifference is often the result of:
- Lack of Awareness – meaning people did not know what to do in different situations even though previous incidents, legal obligations and regulatory mandates exist
- Lack of Follow Through – meaning people knew about the issues, but did not take immediate actions to end the issue and did not take appropriate actions to eliminate the hostile environment and prevent future incidents
- Failed efforts based on the situation, state mandates or organizational obligations
Experts seem to be in agreement that reacting to incidents is much more expensive (and embarrassing) than preventing the incidents from happening, but prevention requires a more comprehensive suite of incident reporting tools to ensure:
- Anonymous or non-anonymous incident reporting tools
- Threat Assessment and Security Team collaboration tools
- Secure and confidential information sharing tools
- Situational awareness tools for all appropriate individuals and team members
- Accessibility options for anytime access to suite of tools
- Documentation / Reporting tools of entire process for compliance and legal defensibility
- And adaptability options as needs and situations continue to change
Is your traditional incident reporting system helping you or working against you?
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New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights – A Step in the Right Direction
Posted In Legal, Regulatory Compliance, School Safety on November 8th, 2010 Tags: bullying, bullying bill of rights, Cyberbullying, new jersey anti-bullying law, rutgers university, School Safety, tyler clementi
Legislators in New Jersey have proposed what may be the toughest anti-bullying law in the nation with a “bill of rights” as its charter.
On the heels of the recent tragedy at Rutgers University when freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death, the proposed legislation builds on current laws that have not adequately protected students who are intimidated every day.
New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights would:
- Apply to bullying at school, near school and on school buses and to cyberbullying.
- Require training for nearly all school employees on how to identify, prevent and report acts of intimidation
- Set deadlines for incidents of bullying to be reported, investigated and resolved. School personnel will have to report incidents of bullying to principals on the same day as the incidents. Principals will have to inform parents or guardians on the same day as the incidents. An investigation will have to begin within one school day of an incident and be resolved within 10 school days of an incident.
- Require each district to form a “school safety team” to review complaints, led by a counselor designated as an “anti-bullying specialist.”
- Provide for the grading of each school on its safety, and provide that each school must put that grade on the home page of its website.
- Create an annual school-wide Week of Respect during which school will provide anti-bullying programming.
- Strengthen suicide prevention training for teachers to include information on the relationship between bullying and suicide, and information on reducing the occurrence of suicide among students most at risk.
- Provides that public universities in the state must prohibit bullying and create anti-bullying rules and procedures for handling bullying, and distribute the rules and procedures to every university student within seven days of the start of the fall semester.
While most schools already have policies and procedures for anti-bullying and behavioral misconduct, what this bill will hopefully achieve is to encourage / require school leaders to help students, faculty and staff proactively identify and report suspicious incidents, bullying, violence, etc.
As we shared in a previous blog, 90% of the bystanders that witness bullying are not reporting incidents, which make prevention and intervention efforts almost impossible.. To prevent bullying and to meet federal regulatory obligations, school leaders must ensure that all faculty, school administrators, school security officers, school resource officers, counselors, parents, and students understand how and where to report incidents and that the incident reporting process is trusted.
Based on lessons learned from numerous bullying / harassment related incidents, anti-bullying legislation may help motivate school leaders and a possible Bullying Prevention Fund in the legislation may help with fiscal related challenges in schools.
Lessons learned also show that all the legislation in the world does not ensure that all appropriate people understand their roles and responsibilities to eliminate the hostile environment created by bullying / harassment and ensure that bullying / harassment does not recur.
The legislation is a step in the right direction, but saving lives and building a positive school environment will ultimately depend on better awareness and better accountability of the school’s living program.
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The Rising Costs of Deliberate Indifference
Posted In Incident Reporting, Legal, Risk Management, School Safety on October 11th, 2010 Tags: bullycide, bullying, bullying lawsuit, Cyberbullying, deliberate indifference, Incident Reporting, school lawsuit, School Safety, title IX
Do you know what the legal definition of “deliberate indifference” is?
The conscious or reckless disregard for the consequences of one’s acts or omissions.
If you are a school leader, school board member or community leader, you might do a quick web search using the words below:
deliberate indifference lawsuit school 2010
Over 8,000 results came up from my search and many of the results were related to lawsuits being brought against schools and universities under violation of Title IX. I heard the term “deliberate indifference” over the weekend when one of the national news channels did a bullying feature on a school in Ohio that has had four students commit suicide. The attorney for two of the families involved stated that the school acted with deliberate indifference towards the students and their families.
How do you ensure your school or community or organization is not sued for deliberate indifference?
Schools leaders, school boards and teachers have an obligation to create a school environment that handles misconduct and educators must realize that consequences related to bullying and cyber bullying are changing very quickly. Bullies and their bullying methods are changing very quickly. Most school leaders have some familiarity with school yard bullying because they can see the bullying with their own eyes and believe they can stop simple bullying.
Cyber bullying is much different and unfortunately most school and community leaders are seemingly disconnected and in the dark when it comes to cyber bullying and the consequences of cyber bullying.
Dealing with deliberate indifference and dealing with cyber bullying requires different approaches including more effective cyber tools that connect all the dots:
- Victims
- Bystanders
- Communities
- Support Teams
- Anonymous Reporting
- Confidentiality
- Legal Ready Documentation
- Compliance Ready Documentation
- Accessibility
- Accountability
- CYA
- And other new challenges that come along…
Does your paper reporting or phone call reporting or e-mail reporting system connect all of the dots in your school? Are you confident your school is not guilty of deliberate indifference?
It is time to deal with deliberate indifference…which will help us save lives too.
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