Rutgers logo
Rutgers logo
Rutgers logo
Rutgers logo

About the NJ Safe Schools Program (NJ SS or Safe Schools)

Student and teacher going over a lesson.

NJ SS is a project supported by the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of Career Readiness, to assist schools in reducing risk to occupational safety and health hazards in secondary school and work microenvironments in which NJ adolescents spend time. The project is administered by the Rutgers-School of Public Health.

NJ SS involves a number of training/education, incident/injury surveillance, and technical assistance components designed to support teachers, administrators, safety and health designees, structured learning experience/work-based learning coordinators, career orientation coordinators, county and local school district apprenticeship coordinators, and cooperative education coordinators and apprenticeship supervisors.

    • "Safe Schools: a health and safety check. "This is a manual of checklists covering environmental and occupational safety & health regulations for secondary occupational and career orientation programs in New Jersey public schools. The manual is updated annually, available online and as an app.
    • View manual here.
    • Required training for supervising structured learning experiences (includes registration fee):
      • NJ Wage and Hour and Wage Payment and Child Labor Laws, Regulations and Hazardous Orders Course (5-6 hours online and an additional 1-hour virtual live session with course trainers; equivalent to prior 1-day in-person format)
      • Federal Wage and Hour and Child Labor Laws, Regulations and Hazardous Orders course (5-6 hours online; equivalent to prior 1-day in-person format)
      • OSHA 10 Plus (12 hours online and an additional 2-hour virtual live session with course trainers; equivalent to prior 2-day in-person format)
      • Designing and Implementing Student Training Plans course (18 hours online and an additional 2-hour virtual live session with course trainers; equivalent to prior 3-day in-person format)
    • The purpose of the Model Safety and Health (S&H) Plan, developed by NJSS for NJDOE, is to be the basis for the safety and health plans developed as required by State of NJ code for each NJ K-12 public school district (SD)—and charter school and private school for students with disability—with one or more approved CTE programs of study in one or more of the 16 Career Clusters. Typically, each secondary school campus is named and is part of the main SD S&H plan.
    • Download word doc file: Model Safety and Health Plan
    • The purpose of the Worksite and Health Evaluation Guide, developed by NJSS for NJDOE, is to assist NJ secondary schools--with approved CTE programs of study in one or more of the 16 Career Clusters--to conduct initial (and follow-up) site visits at potential job/worksites where students may be placed during the school year and/or summer months for work-based learning (formerly school-sponsored structured learning experiences).
    • Download word doc file: Worksite Safety and Health Evaluation Guide
    • Click here for some real life examples of the document in use
    • Assistance with safety and health questions
    • Newsletter
    • Project evaluation
    • Resources available at partner universities, agencies and non-profit websites
    • Training needs assessments