PACE Day delivers more opportunities to learn about school safety

Virtual PACE Day Thursday brought together education, insurance and legal professionals to learn about student safety and liability issues. More than 300 people signed up for the day.

Property and Casualty Coverage for Education is an insurance pool made up of roughly 300 Oregon member school districts, charter schools, education service districts and community colleges. The annual PACE Day provides safety education and networking opportunities.

This year, PACE Day: Safe and Secure Schools offered three session periods with five workshop choices each session. Attendees could choose among breakouts covering topics such as Title IX, employment laws, charter school issues, wildfire response and equity.

The gathering was also an opportunity to recognize outstanding programs and people, and three awards, were given out. Parkrose School District was awarded the Safety Star grand prize, which comes with $5,000 to use for further safety initiatives.

During the keynote session, Diane Cranley, CEO and founder of TAALK (Talk About Abuse to Liberate Kids), shared organizational strategies to help prevent student sexual abuse and molestation.

Cranley showed research that cites about 20% of children will have been sexually abused by age 18. Predators seek what Cranley called “access” to children, and schools are often targeted. Cranley’s session also covered grooming behaviors, employment screening procedure information and other prevention resources.

“Nothing is more important to us than getting every child and every employee home safe, every day,” said PACE Administrator Dave Harvey. “This PACE Day content will help us all be better equipped to keep them safe.”