School’s Out! How To Make The Most Of Your Summer Break – Education | #education | #technology | #training

For administrators and staff of institutions of higher education
(IHEs), “summer break” may not be the vacation they want
it to be—while the summer months may seem slower when most
students are away, this time still provides an important
opportunity to roll up your sleeves and review and overhaul school
policies and protocols before the fall term begins. In the calm
before the fast-approaching 2022-23 academic year, IHEs should take
stock of existing policies or protocols and revise them to enhance
efficiency and safety and bring them into legal compliance, if
necessary. Below is a non-exhaustive list of general items IHEs
should consider in the coming weeks:

• Review Campus Safety Policies and Procedures:
  School safety is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and it is
  more important than ever to have effective safety plans in place
  that are clearly communicated to campus security and campus
  community members. Now is the time to review safety and security
  policies, protocols, and campus resources and infrastructure and,
  after consulting with professionals, implement new measures to
  enhance campus safety. IHEs should also ensure that safety policies
  and procedures are effectively communicated to the entire campus
  community, including training employees and students on relevant
  policies, procedures, and available resources.




• Review COVID-19 Practices and Protocols: Most
  IHEs are open for in-person learning and activities again, and it
  is crucial for the administration to have clear plans for how to
  communicate and enforce its health and safety policies before
  students return to campus in the fall. IHEs should also have
  contingency plans in place in case the campus community or
  surrounding region experiences a spike in COVID-19 cases after the
  academic year begins. IHEs should proactively consider whether
  there is a certain threshold of new COVID-19 cases that would cause
  some or all campus facilities or programs to increase COVID-19
  restrictions, what those restrictions might be, and the
  circumstances that may make a return to remote learning necessary.
  IHEs should consider these thresholds carefully and craft a
  contingency plan ahead of the fall term, so that they can quickly
  and seamlessly implement new restrictions or enforce a stricter
  campus health and safety policy, if necessary.




• Review Cloud Platforms and Data Storage Systems for
  Privacy and Data Security: Existing and emerging online
  and cloud-based data applications are vital resources for IHEs to
  utilize in modern education, particularly with the increased
  importance of remote learning capabilities. However, with those
  resources also comes the prospect of serious privacy breaches and,
  in more extreme cases, even data hacking attempts. IHEs maintain
  vital and confidential information of their employees and students.
  Thus, it is critical that IHEs’ information and technology
  departments review best practices and make certain all
  administrators and staff know and understand school data security
  and retention policies. The summer is also a good opportunity to
  ensure all existing and incoming employees with access to student
  data are fully trained on privacy and data use compliance,
  including FERPA and other jurisdiction-specific privacy laws,
  before the new academic term begins. As the landscape of technology
  continues to change, IHE employees should be refreshing their
  training annually.




• Keep an Eye on New Guidance and Know What Regulatory
  Changes May Be Coming: IHEs should always engage with
  counsel before embarking on a complete overhaul of student-facing
  policies to ensure that the policies have longevity under federal,
  state, and local law and regulations. Accordingly, IHEs should be
  monitoring trends, regulatory updates, and new guidance promulgated
  by the Department of Education and enforced by the Office of Civil
  Rights (OCR), as well as new guidance at the state or local level.
  For example, the Biden administration recently released its
  proposed new Title IX rules that, if implemented, will require
  substantial changes to Title IX policies that were promulgated
  under the prior administration. Similarly, OCR has received an
  increased number of complaints in the past several years, and there
  has been a trend in OCR enforcement that indicates increased
  scrutiny of single-sex and targeted-sex scholarships and programs
  under Title IX. This may indicate that IHEs’ existing programs
  or scholarships could be more susceptible to OCR investigations.
  IHEs should review their programs carefully and avoid the pitfalls
  that can invite these investigations.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.