Healthy and Safe Schools (HASS) Program

Updated: 04.23.2024

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Do you need help with lead in water testing? Or your HASS Plan or Annual Statement?

Join us starting in May on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month at 11:00 am until noon.

We can help you with requirements for testing, reimbursement, required documents, and what to post to your website.

Welcome

The Office of School Facilities has the overall goal of providing healthy, safe, and warm facilities for all children attending Oregon’s public schools. The Healthy and Safe Schools Program (HASS Program) helps districts communicate how they are addressing potential environmental hazards in their facilities.

HASS Plans

In the interest of providing transparency and fostering public trust, the HASS Program provides easy access for parents and the community to view districts’ plans to address environmental hazards. Healthy and Safe Schools (HASS) Plans are to be easy to find, accessible, and understandable. The HASS Plan law requires school districts, charter schools, and ESDs, to provide a single document that gives an overview of how they are addressing environmental hazards and plans to:

• Test their water for elevated levels of lead and report test results
• Manage any lead paint present in compliance with federal regulations
• Manage any asbestos present in compliance with federal regulations (AHERA)
• Test their schools for radon and report results per state law
• Comply with state Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices
• Comply with state building code requirements for carbon monoxide detection
  

Compliance with HASS plan requirements and the mandatory water testing requirements are required under Division 22.

HASS Templates:

ODE has created HASS Plan templates. These are available for use by your school district, ESD, or charter school. While ODE has provided the template, your organization will still need to customize to fit your situation. The information that needs to be added includes:

• The logo
• Contact information
  
• Facility/buildings names and addresses
• Lead in water testing schedule for each facility/building
  
• A list of how each environmental hazard will be dealt with
• Working links to those plans (radon plan, asbestos management, IPM, etc.) that are available to the public (the documents cannot need a password to be accessed).

The three contacts that need to be listed in the HASS plan and kept up-to-date are:

• The person(s) responsible for the HASS plan.
• The designated IPM coordinator(s).
• The person(s) responsible for the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) information.

These contacts can be the same or different for each responsibility and there has to be at least one, but also can be two people responsible per position.

HASS Webpage:

The HASS plan and all related documents including environmental hazard plans and testing results must be grouped together and located on the school or district website such that they can be easily found. Since many parents do not even know the plan exists and to maximize transparency it should be located in a place that parents are likely to find when viewing your website and labeled under health or safety.

The HASS plan should have its own tab on the homepage with separate subtabs for IPM, Radon, and Test Results, as well as the latest Annual Statement. Test results must be formatted in a manner that is as easy for parents to read and understand as possible. The lab reports on Radon Test Results and Water Test Results are hard to read, so use summary templates such as those provided by ODE for radon and lead in water, either instead of or in addition to the actual lab sheets. If you have not yet completed your testing, you may link to a notice in a web location where the results will posted when testing is completed. This notice should include an approximate schedule of when you anticipate testing will be performed. When testing has been completed, you will simply replace this notice with the test results.

Updating the HASS plan:

If there are changes regarding information included in the HASS, please update the HASS plan to reflect these changes, when those changes occur. Common updates include:

• A change of responsible contact staff
• An addition or deletion of facilities
• Updating of your testing schedule
• Test results.

After changes have been made, email the new HASS Plan to ODE.HASS@ode.oregon.gov, update your website with the new HASS plan, and equip the main office with a new copy. It is not necessary to update or develop a new HASS plan each year unless there are changes to the plan.

Annual Statements

Each school district, charter school, and ESD must prepare, publish, and submit to ODE an Annual Statement, due by June 1st each year. When preparing the Annual Statement, review the HASS plan carefully to ensure that all information in the plan is accurate and up to date and that all links in the plan function correctly. Then fill out the Annual Statement template and send a copy to ODE.HASS@ode.oregon.gov for approval before publication.

The Annual Statement:

• Certifies the HASS plan is up to date, and where to obtain a copy.
• Certifies the required testing for the past school year has been completed.
  
• Certifies all test results are posted, and where to find them.
• Certifies the HASS website and links are all working correctly.
• Reports on any major remediation work that the district has done to reduce the risk of exposure to environmental hazards in the past school year.

HASS Plan vs Annual Statement

An approved HASS Plan, due to ODE in 2019, only needs to be revised or rewritten unless there are changes to the information contained within the plan. (The exception to this is HASS plans completed in 2016 must be updated to the new version.)

The Annual Statement is a separate but related document that must be completed every year by June 1.

The table below describes the differences between the HASS plan and the Annual Statement.

Publishing the Annual Statement

You must provide copies of the Annual Statement certifying compliance to:

• Oregon Department of Education – Office of School Facilities as a Word document
• The governing body for the district or school. (They do not have to approve it, just receive it.)
• Sent electronically to staff, students, and parents of minor students
• Posted to your website
• Available to the public in your main office in print form.
  

If you have questions, please contact ODE.HASS@ode.oregon.gov by email or at 971-208-0406.

Useful Resources

• Frequently Asked Questions – Coming soon

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