While much of the focus surrounding Title IX often concerns Higher Education, the law applies to all schools in the US receiving federal aid. This includes Kindergarten through 12th Grade or K-12 Schools. K12 schools also experience similar issues around Title IX management and Title IX compliance.
In K12 schools, filing complaints can be done by parents and guardians on behalf of students. Schools are also required to notify parents and guardians of any complaints involving their dependent and there should be continued communications throughout the procedure.
Title IX refers to the US Federal Law that prohibits sex discrimination in the activities or programs of any school receiving federal funding.
The law requires all schools to take appropriate steps in preventing and addressing any incidents of sexual discrimination, including sexual harassment.
Issues in Title IX Compliance
The main issues experienced by K-12 schools involve the management of Title IX responsibilities. This includes the manual effort of creating, tracking and recording all the cases that fall under Title IX’s jurisdiction. Some school districts may have more than 50 schools, but only one Title IX Coordinator. This can lead to a heavy work-load, that may be difficult for the Title IX Coordinator to manage to the best of their ability.
This issue may be best resolved with a case management system.
Case Management Systems
Case management systems reduce the need to rely on out-of-date, often inaccurate manual systems. Combined with early alert, these systems ensure cases are raised and progressed in an efficient and timely manner. Some of the benefits of case managements systems for Title IX requirements include:
- Seamless integration with existing infrastructure.
- Rapid deployment to help you make improvements almost instantly.
- Stage based workflows to allow for the easy tracking of and progression through Title IX grievance procedures.
- Automated communications at each step to save valuable time and resources
- Early Alerts: An automatic warning system for inaction or outstanding actions in relation to a case or incident.
- Smart Tags to easily keep track of case specifications.
- A custom dashboard to for quick and easy viewing of case stages and status.
- Easy-to-generate reports for relevant stakeholders.
- Ensured data privacy with role-based security systems.
To goal of Title IX is to ensure equal access to and opportunity in education for all students. An overwhelmed and overstretched Title IX Coordinator may struggle to achieve this. The best way to improve Title IX management in K-12 schools is to implement a case management system to ease the burden.
For more on Case Management, check out our product page.
