We're on a mission at Robinform
School admins make schools run smoothly, we want to make their jobs easier
Nearly half of U.S. states require school districts to verify with an applicant’s past employers that there is no history of sexual misconduct. In principle, these are crucial laws to keep children safe. In practice, they make can a school administrator’s job incredibly difficult.
I believe that if you’re trying to keep schools safe for children, you shouldn’t have to spend hours chasing down the right email address or phone number. When I first learned how much time and effort went into staying compliant with these state laws, I was blown away and immediately wanted to help. We built Robinform to address the top concerns we heard from HR teams:
Make it easy to track the forms from start to finish
Stay compliant with state requirements
Eliminate the tedious, manual work so staff can focus on more skilled tasks
It became clear as we talked with districts throughout Maryland and Washington that while most school districts had a process in place, it wasn’t really working for them. Here are some of the most common scenarios shared with us:
“We’re not tracking… anything.”
This happens at districts of all sizes. The misconduct forms are a to-do item on the onboarding list, but once the forms are sent out to the past employers and the state requirements are fulfilled, the team moves on. In some cases, there is no record of how many forms were sent or where they are sent to. They know this is a compliance risk but if they never get a form back, they wouldn’t know!
“It takes hours to find the right contact information and follow up.”
In some states, like Maryland, districts are required to show that they have tried to reach the past employer a specific number of times. Sometimes they even need to try different methods (i.e. you can’t just email them three times, you need to add a phone call or fax). Manually following up and tracking each attempt to contact a past employer is a huge burden on the HR team.
“We do everything manually.”
This is the most common scenario we see: every single step requires a person to complete it. The HR team takes on the burden of sending the forms to the applicants, correcting mistakes, tracking down the right contact information for the past employers, sending the forms, following up, and then filing a report if there was no response. Often this involves a complicated spreadsheet that only one or two people know how to read (a risk if that person moves jobs).
At Robinform, it is our mission to help school administrators simplify these processes. If you feel like your process isn’t working and you’re ready to try something new, let’s talk.
Email anna @ robinform.com if you’d like to learn more.