Lake Local School District

Lake Local School District

“Rea & Associates, Inc. expanded the capacity of our organization by producing a detailed, informative employee handbook with minimal effort and cost on our part.  Lake Local Schools incorporated a proven system supplied by Rea & Associates, which in turn, created a valuable resource for our staff.”

-- William Stetler, District Superintendent

Lake Local School District

Located in Stark County, Ohio, between Akron and Canton, Lake Local School District serves more than 3,200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The district consists of two primary schools, one intermediate school, one middle school, and one high school and proudly meets student achievement goals consistently. Managed by district superintendent, William Stetler, the district is currently expanding facilities to better meet the needs of this northeast Ohio community.

The Issues

As a district employing more than 250 teachers, aides, administrators and others, Superintendent Stetler believes it is important to have an employee handbook that outlines the district’s philosophy and policies. While contracts were in place, there was no communication piece that helped the staff understand their role or the specifics of certain important district policies. While the administration discussed developing an employee handbook, they learned firsthand from their treasurer’s office about the solid work of Rea & Associates. Not only did Rea successfully handle their GAPP conversion, but they also had a seasoned Human Resource team in place qualified to help with a variety of HR projects.

The Objectives

During 2003, Superintendent Stetler hired Rea & Associates to create the district employee handbook. Dan Toussant, Director of Human Resources for Rea & Associates, initiated the project by developing and distributing employee handbook questionnaires. The questionnaire listed mandatory policies to include in an employee handbook and sample policies in the areas of employment, benefits and employee conduct, which are all applicable to the educational environment, This survey was designed to help the district identify what information should be included in the handbook.

After the questionnaires were completed, Rea met with Superintendent Stetler to set the objectives and plan the project. They designated administrative assistant, Gloria Molenaur, and retired school secretary, Sandy DeGiacamo, as the Handbook Committee. Following the initial meeting, Rea reviewed all existing contracts to ensure that the handbook would compliment and not conflict with any of the district’s legal agreements.The team set an eight-week time frame to complete the project in order to have the handbooks ready for the beginning of the next school year.

The Strategy and Tactics

The Rea HR team implemented a series of tactics to ensure the district’s satisfaction with the employee handbook. First, the Handbook Committee and Rea held planning meetings throughout the process. After each planning meeting, Rea developed three samples of each of the policies in question and sent them to the Handbook Committee to review. Once the Handbook Committee reviewed the sample policies, Rea followed up with telephone conferences to discuss them in more detail. Together, the team revised the samples to fit their specifications and came up with final policy drafts that would be entered into the handbook.

Once all the policies were agreed upon, Rea drafted the handbook and sent 20 copies to the district’s administrative team to review. The administrative team made the necessary revisions, which Rea implemented before sending another 20 handbooks to the district.

Once the administrative team gave their final approval on the employee handbook, Rea printed and assembled the final 50 handbooks.

Finally, Rea developed a PowerPoint program for the administrative team to visually communicate the purpose of the handbook to the district employees. They also provided a CD of the handbook so changes to the manual can be easily made in the future.

 

The Results

The administrative team believes the employee handbook developed by Rea’s HR team has strengthened both the orientation for new employees and communications with existing employees. The handbook was such a success that the original agreement for 50 copies was ultimately increased to 450 handbooks.

“We had a great experience with Rea & Associates,” said Gloria Molenaur, the district’s administrative assistant and Handbook Committee member. “They were completely responsive and willing to help in any way.”

With a formal employee handbook in place, the district’s employees will never have to question the details of the policies. It is an excellent tool for this Division I school district to improve communications and to standardize policies within the system.