The Source

The Source is a newsletter for all Comal ISD employees. The Source brings recognition, timely reminders and beneficial articles to the employees in an effort to provide increased communication and connection regarding human resources and customer service topics.

Last Call for Summer School Applications

Comal Cares- Are You the Next Poster Employee?

Health Insurance Open Enrollment

Virtual Doctor Visit Copay Reduction

In The Spotlight- Meet a Theatre Teacher

PTA Teacher Appreciation Week

Health and Wellness- Alcohol Awareness and Alcohol Calorie Information

Customer Service Corner- 9 Tips on Great Customer Service

Summer School Applications are due by April 29 at https://comal.tedk12.com/hire/index.aspx.

This month, we launched the new digital Comal Cares, where our parents and community members can log on to leave feedback about the great service they have received in our district. Every comment is shared with the campus or department where the comment was focused so that individuals and teams can be recognized for their excellent work or can receive valuable feedback for improvement.

“Customer service is taking the opportunity to turn any situation into a personal, positive experience.”

Comal Cares Philosophy

• Treat all people with courtesy, dignity and respect
• Practice open, honest, two-way communication
• Base all decisions on what is best for students
• Take ownership for providing the best service possible
• Respond to phone calls and emails with in 24 hours
• Listen to all concerns

As we receive specific praise for employees who go above and beyond in their daily service to the community of Comal ISD and to the students and families we serve, we would like to honor them with a place on our Comal Cares digital website banner.

Will your great service make you the next Comal Cares poster employee?

We look forward to celebrating the great work of our Comal ISD team members by sharing your smiling face on our posters.

The health insurance open enrollment schedule, 2016-17 proposed insurance plans and Frequently Asked Questions regarding insurance can be found at: http://www.comalisd.org/pages/Comal_ISD/About_Us/Departments/HumanResources/Benefits

If you have questions regarding benefits or the open enrollment process, please contact Glenna Miranda

Employee Benefits Coordinator

Phone: 830-221-2040
Email: glenna.miranda@comalisd.org

Good News! During enrollment meetings, our United Healthcare representatives received feedback from Comal ISD employees as to why the Virtual Visits were the same copay as an in office primary care visit. Comal ISD employees shared that they believed that there should be some incentive for utilizing the Virtual Visits when appropriate. Our representatives from United Healthcare agreed with this feedback and worked with their underwriting team. They have revised the Virtual Visit copay to $25 ($5 less than a PCP office visit) and they are holding the current renewal rates with this change.

Comal ISD teachers are real life superheroes. They educate, innovate, encourage and support. Every day they touch the lives of millions of children and their work and impact extends far beyond the boundaries of the classroom. Thank you for all you do!

Take the time to celebrate these real life superheroes during PTA Teacher Appreciation Week, May 2-6, 2016.

We are proud of the tremendous work our almost 2,500 employees do to make our district exceptional. In order to educate our team about all the unique and vital services provided by our employees, we will highlight Comal ISD team roles in each newsletter. You are encouraged to send your stories and suggestions to mandy.epley@comalisd.org for roles you wish to see highlighted in future newsletters.

This month we are highlighting the work of our Theatre Teachers.

Comal ISD offers Theatre Arts at all 5 middle schools as well as at CHS, SVHS and CLHS. Our Theatre teachers endeavor to provide a comprehensive educational experience through challenging, multi-level coursework in theatre arts and technical theatre as well as diverse production opportunities, including UIL One Act Play, where students will develop, not only performance skills, but an enriched understanding of themselves and the world around them.

In addition to the Theatre Arts TEKS, students learn:

Community

• Communication and Collaboration

• School and Cross-Cultural Skills

• Integrity and Respect

  Discipline

• Initiative and Self-Direction

• Productivity and Accountability

• Resilience and Persistence

  Innovation

• Creativity and Innovation

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

• Information, Communications, and Technology Literacy

  Pride

• Flexibility and Adaptability

• Leadership and Responsibility

• Achievement and Excellence

  
  

Carter Ridge is the Church Hill Middle School Theatre Teacher. She has been a bright light to the campus and the theatre program. Carter tells us that she was a shy child and her experiences with theatre is what brought her out of her shell; winning Best Actress as a student gave her the confidence she needed. Her desire to bring that opportunity to all of her students is experienced by them each day. Jakob S., one of her students said, " I enjoy theatre for many reasons. For one, it allows you to step into the shoes of any character and you forget your own worries and stress. Another reason, and maybe the biggest reason, is the teacher. Mrs. Ridge is one of the best teachers ever because she truly cares about everyone and makes every class enjoyable.

Carter builds morale with her students to give them confidence to excel on stage, where they placed first in our Comal ISD Middle School UIL One Act Play Competition this year, but also in life knowing they have built an amazing community. “Creating wonderful memories for kids is what I want to do,” shared Mrs. Ridge. And that is what she does every day at Church Hill Middle School!

INFORMATION ON ALCOHOL AWARENESS CAN BE FOUND AT:

https://www.uhctools.com/assets/prebuilt_nl_2013_alcohol_awareness.pdf

Improving Customer Service In Public Schools And Public Education: 9 Expert Tips For K-12 And Beyond is an article written by Micah Soloman for Forbes.com, June 5, 2015.

(For the purpose of his article, Mr. Soloman defines your “customer” as being the student, the student’s family–to the extent that family supports the student’s goals–and, to some extent, the community and taxpayers.)

1. Streamline. Customers today expect what I call “digital parity.” They expect organizations in every arena to be as efficient, streamlined, and easy to use as the best of what those customers have experienced online. Schools and school systems don’t get a pass on this. Today’s customers expect self-service options, they don’t expect to repeatedly fill out forms with information they’ve already provided elsewhere, and they actively rebel against org chart-mandated siloing (“I don’t handle that, you’ll have to go down the hall, or “you’ll have to come back Thursdays, when Ms. ____ is in the office.”)
2. Try it yourself. Are you easy to use? You won’t know until you try. Try your own website without your auto-log in. Is it easy? Or a pain? Come in the front door of your building (rather than entering from the employee parking area) and see if the front door swings open easily, or whacks you on the shoulder. Fill out a “request information” form online and see if anyone—ever!—responds. You may be shocked at what you find out.
3. Do the hustle. Perfect customer service, delivered late, feels like a defect. And the timeline for what customers consider “late” is continually getting shorter. You’re not being judged based on what’s always been “fast enough for education”; you’re being judged, implicitly and unconsciously, based on the speed of amazon, Uber, and Starbucks.
4. Benchmark outside of education. More and more, what your customers are expecting in customer service comes from great service they experience outside of education–and you, too, should look outside of education to great companies and organizations regardless of industry for inspiration that will improve your game at school. In timeliness as mentioned in point 3, and in quality, efficiency, and service style.
5. Learn to apologize. Things will go wrong. Prepare for this, emotionally as well as operationally. Note that sometimes–often–you’re simply apologizing for the situation, not for something you did wrong. It doesn’t matter; an apology is still of value.
6. Don’t make customers ask simple questions that they should have been able to find online. Customers don’t like to be burdened to contact you for items that could easily be provided for them on a self-service basis. Make sure your FAQ’s include the questions that customers want answers to and make sure they are updated. Is your department, campus or teacher webpage updated with contact information, schedules, assignments and helpful links or resources?
7. Get the “hello before the hello” right. Hellos and goodbyes are key moments in customer service, and what organizations often neglect to consider is what I call “the hello before the hello”: If parking is hard to find, if disabled access is poor (or–just as common–confusing), if office hours are posted incorrectly online, then you’re making a poor impression before your “customer” (here I’m mostly thinking of parents and prospective parents) even gets to your office.
8. Don’t lose it on the handoff. It’s easy for an employee to promise something to a customer–and then send the customer elsewhere within your organization for actual results. Fair enough: but did the details of the customer’s needs actually get fully conveyed to the person who was handed the ball? And, did the handoffee follow through on these instructions? Or did she hand off the responsibility again? (And, if so, was the customer support fumbled on that handoff?) Follow-through and follow-up are keys to a successful customer experience, and are often best accomplished by the person who first took the request. You may not be the person to do the technical work required to fulfill a customer need, but you can contribute by following through to ensure that technical work was done.
9. Build a culture of yes. A hallmark of a great organization is an attitude in every department, every corner, every hallway is as follows: “The answer is yes—now what was your question?” There’s great power in getting everyone in your organization to share a goal of getting to a “yes” for every customer, rather than figuring out ways to say “no,” “not my department,” “it doesn’t work that way around here,” “sadly, we cannot accommodate that request,” or “if you call back in the morning, perhaps we’ll be able to help you.” This should be self-evident, right? Yet, well-meaning employees can still find a dozen ways to say no to their customers. Which makes it incredibly important to set, and as often as necessary re-set, your cultural default to yes. You accomplish this by modeling a spirit of yes, hiring for a spirit of yes, rewarding a spirit of yes. (And there’s one more thing: Sometimes in education, achieving a culture of “yes” requires rooting out or/and reforming “situational tyrants.” Any institution can become a breeding ground for what I call “situational tyrants,” people who have the power to say “no” within their tiny little fiefdom, and who exercise that power every chance they get. It is incredibly important to get these people to come over to your program of having “yes” as the goal: “Yes, we can assist you with this and would be happy to do so.”)

If you have news, topics, or celebrations you wish to have shared in this newsletter, please send an email to Mandy Epley, Executive Director of Human Resources and Customer Service at mandy.epley@comalisd.org.

Email: mandy.epley@comalisd.org
Website: www.comalisd.org
Location: 1404 Interstate 35 N, New Braunfels, TX, 78130
Phone: (830) 221-2026
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/comalisd
Twitter: @CISDNews