To: Michael Green
From: Vicky Barnes
Date: April 18, 2024
Subject: Human Resources and Safety Report
Human Resources Summary
On February 29th, I spoke to students at Cascadia to help prepare them for the career fair, which will happen on April 23rd. The long-term goal of meetings like these is to encourage students to consider a job in education and outline for them what is needed for a job as a paraeducator.
I attended the Washington State Personnel Conference on March 4 - 6 and was able to attend for free through a generous scholarship. The conference was held in Vancouver and the classes ranged from dealing with legal issues, bargaining, and how to coach and support employees. These opportunities along with other trainings I attend throughout the year help keep the district up to date with how situations are approached.
Reasonable Accommodation Meetings: Part of the duties of Human Resources is to meet with employees who have a doctor’s note with restrictions that impact their ability to work. Most of the meetings are for temporary restrictions, but they can also be for ongoing needs. Reasonable accommodation meetings allow employees with medical restrictions to bring ideas about how their position could be adjusted or if there are additional tools used to help them that can be purchased. The administrator and I meet with the employee to discuss the restrictions and the possible accommodations and enter into an agreement if the accommodations are found to be reasonable.
Safety Summary
I was invited to be part of a regional school safety advisory group which will help me refine the safety processes for our district. As a region, the focus has been to get all of the districts onboard using Standard Response Protocol (SRP). This action-based plan outlines the responses to different scenarios. We have been using SRP for some time and all employees and substitutes are educated about it at processing. We are also focusing on continuing to update our emergency plans for our district and our building.
This spring, we hope to conduct a safety drive to outfit emergency toilets for each classroom in case of a natural disaster in which our bathrooms aren’t accessible or working. Our local Ace Hardware and Longview Home Depot generously donated 135 five-gallon buckets for the project.