RISK INSIGHT: Planning Your School’s End-of-Year Celebration
Spring is right around the corner, which means many school districts are beginning to plan their end-of-year celebrations for students, staff, and families. Perhaps your district has achieved a milestone, and it’s the right thing for the community to enjoy the moment, or perhaps graduation ceremonies are in order. Such celebrations can be driven by school officials, parent teacher organizations, school alumni, or the community-at-large.
A good celebration can help your district in many ways: it can enhance student engagement, build a culture of achievement and strengthen your bond with the community. The challenge for districts is to make sure such an event is not only safe, but has insurance coverage in the event that something goes wrong.
Factors to Consider When Planning an End-of-Year Celebration
Safety Precautions
A district celebration can include a large crowd and/or amusement devices. With this in mind, your district should be following all of your standard event safety precautions. That means vendor risk management, volunteer background checks, crowd control guidelines, and working with your municipality for any required permits. Amusement devices like inflatables and dunk tanks can cause serious injury to students, staff, and visitors. Your district will want to consider the need for outside help from risk management and safety experts from your insurance agency or insurance company to guide the district through these issues.
There are times when a celebration is large enough that it calls for extra safety precautions. This can mean including risk management experts and security professionals to make sure everyone can focus on the celebration without being worried about safety.
Insurance Coverage
When you have a large crowd, amusement devices, or security, you have the potential for risk. One factor that you should understand is the transfer of risk. Understand that any devices or resources will include a purchasing agreement. Make sure you thoroughly review those contracts to understand if those assets include the transfer of risk and/or liability during their use.
You will also need to consider whether any of your devices or activities could cause an exclusion to any of your insurance coverages. You’ll want to partner with your insurance experts so they can help you identify any potential gaps in coverage.
Key Takeaways
Ultimately, you want your celebration to be a time of joy for all involved, rather than a time for worry about the risks associated with such events. Be sure to work with your risk and insurance partners to make sure your risks are accounted for, allowing everyone to enjoy the celebration.
This article was written by Marty Malloy.
Marty served as a Director of Education & Government Practice at M3 until his retirement in 2023.
