By Angela E. Pometto
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 8/26/04)

Last year, there were 217 reported injuries in diocesan schools. Of those, 38 required a visit to the emergency room — about 17.5 percent. For each of those emergency room visits, a family with medical insurance still had to pay, on average, $700 in out of pocket fees. The proposed Global Student and Athletes Special Accident Protection plan will eliminate that cost to families.

Randy Jouben, director of the Office of Risk Management, has suggested a comprehensive program that will make the schools safer. He presented the plan at the principals’ meeting held recently at St. John the Evangelist School in Warrenton. There are several steps in this plan that revolve around instituting the mandatory and global insurance.

"The program will provide parents with a $25,000 base coverage should their child be injured during school activities including participation in sport activities," Jouben said. "In addition, this plan includes catastrophic accident coverage, which provides an additional accidental medical lifetime benefit of $1 million."

The coverage is for any student accidents that occur while participating in a school activity — whether sports, plays, concerts or class trips. Both of these policies cover what the family would pay out of pocket in addition to their major medical insurance and the entire cost for families who do not have insurance.

The catastrophic coverage in the past has only covered the patient for a year or two after the accident. Now, victims of severe accidents will have help for life.

The program almost sounds too good to be true. The big question is who is going to pay for it. The annual cost is $50,000 — or about $3 per student.

"The plan is being provided at no direct cost to the family," said Jouben. "The cost of this coverage will be underwritten in full by the Office of Risk Management."

Jouben said that in time, the program will "pay for itself." In the past, when students experience injury at school, parents have been known to sue the diocese. Whenever this happens, it creates a bad relationship between the parents and the school. Many parents realize that the diocese would rather pay the extra $100-$500 medical expenses than end up in court. The diocese, however, does defend itself when necessary, since most injuries are not the fault of the school. The cost of an attorney for one case is close to the $50,000 that would pay for the extra insurance.

But the main goal of this project is to create a safer environment for the children. For example, the Office of Risk Management had no recorded sports-related injuries last year, which means that people aren’t reporting accidents. To take part in the benefits offered by the global insurance plan, these injuries will have to be reported.

"The more information I get on what causes injuries, the more I can work on prevention," Jouben said.

Along with the policy, the Office of Risk Management has suggested a reward system to help schools that are safer. Schools are encouraged to complete and return their safety surveys and appoint a risk management coordinator. Surveys have been in place for many years, but Jouben has made them more detailed, including questions about disaster drills, parent drop-off procedures and seasonal/holiday safety. Each school’s risk management coordinator will complete the survey monthly and will receive a $200 stipend for the work.

There will be a diocesan-wide school safety contest with a cash prize to be awarded at the end of the school year. While this idea is in the early stages, criteria will include elements such as the timely submission of the safety survey, number of safety drills completed, frequency of student and faculty accidents and number of safety programs presented to students. Depending on funds, Jouben hopes to award second and third places and present a trophy or plaque to the winning school.

Future plans also include purchasing Automatic External Defibrillators for all the schools, as well as having more teachers CPR-certified. "This is the big money phase, but we hope to raise the bar a little," Jouben said.

Jouben offered his support to the principals and encouraged the schools to use resources offered by the Office of Risk Management, including awareness programs for gang violence, terrorism, bullying and sportsmanship.

With the safety contests, Jouben hopes to use school pride to inspire kids to keep their schools and homes safe. The programs implemented in schools will no doubt make their way back into the home as kids start checking their smoke alarms and charting escape plans. His goal is for safety to become a habit to the children.

"I want a better program than any public school in the state," Jouben said.