New Course: Food Safety for Food Handlers

Beginning July 1, 2015, there are new Professional Standards for food service workers put into place by the USDA. According to the School Nutrition Association (SNA), the USDA created these Professional Standards to increase the amount of training school nutrition professionals need to help them build skills, help them stay current with complex school nutrition programs, enhance the image of school nutrition employees, and ensure that proper food handling training for school nutrition staff is seen as crucial for the health of our nation's students.

According to the new Professional Standards, the new training requirements for the 2015-2016 school year are as follows:

• Directors: 8 hours
• Managers: 6 hours
• Staff (more than 20 hours/week): 4 hours
• Part-time staff (less than 20 hours/week): 4 hours

Any training received on or before April 1, 2015 can count toward the 2015-2016 school year requirements. These requirements will increase again for the 2016-2017 school year.

To help school districts easily meet these requirements, WORKS' "Food Safety for Food Handlers" online training course was developed in coordination with the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). This 65-minute course covers adequate cooking temperatures, how to use and care for food thermometers, how to prevent contamination throughout the food preparation and service process, and proper heating and cooling methods.

New Course: Electrical Safety Work Practices and Standards

Employees who are responsible for handling electrical issues are obviously at-risk for hazards that are different than those impacting other school district employees. The statistics on electrical incidents may be higher than you think. For every 300,000 at-risk behaviors performed by employees who handle electrical issues, there are:

• 30,000 near misses
• 300 recordable injuries
• 30 lost-time injuries
• 1 fatality

There is a significant liability for a school district that has this type of employee accident. To reduce the risk of an incident and keep employees safe in the workplace, districts around the nation are required to provide electrical safety training to those employees who face electrical hazards.

In the new 90-minute WORKS' Electrical Safety Work Practices and Standards online staff training course, employees will learn:

• Hazards and risks associated with electrical energy, including approach and arc flash hazards
• Types of injuries that can result from electrical hazards
• Purpose of risk analysis and approach boundaries and how to conduct them
• Appropriate use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and protective clothing
• Employer responsibilities
• Safety-related work practices and procedures

Staying Safe this Independence Day

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