Know what to do when a violation lands on your desk
CHO Managing Violations is an online course for Chemical Hygiene Officers (CHOs) on the day something goes wrong, and the weeks after it: an inspector at the door, a citation in the mail, a colleague who breaks a rule, a spill that leaves the building. It teaches the response step by step, with the rules, the deadlines and the forms, so a bad day becomes a record of a program that works.
It is written for CHOs in education (school districts, private and independent schools) and in industry (research, testing, quality control and manufacturing labs). Every lesson shows the step in a school or district and in a company or lab.
What you will learn
- Who Can Cite You, and for What: federal OSHA, the State Plans and why they reach public schools, EPA and the state environmental agency, the fire marshal, and the rules behind most lab findings.
- The Inspection Itself: credentials and consent, the walkaround, private interviews, the records binder and the closing conference.
- The Citation Arrives: classifications and 2026 penalty amounts, counting the fifteen working days, informal conferences and settlements, contests, abatement certification and petitions for more time.
- Reporting When Something Has Happened: OSHA’s 8-hour and 24-hour reports, chemical release reporting, preserving the scene, and injuries to students, contractors and visitors.
- When Your Own People Break the Rules: mistakes, risky choices and reckless acts, rules that are trained and enforced, stopping work, and protecting people who report.
- Root Cause and Corrective Action: the five whys, causal factors and the hierarchy of controls, with fixes that are verified.
- Self-Audit and Self-Disclosure: OSHA’s self-audit policy, EPA’s Audit Policy with its 21-day and 60-day clocks, and the finding you cannot fix this week.
- Communicating When Things Go Wrong: leadership, staff, families, customers and the press.
Finish with a working playbook
Each module ends with a Task, and each Task writes one part of your own Violation Response Playbook: an authority map, an inspection day protocol, a citation response timeline, a reporting tree, a noncompliance response ladder, a root cause record, a self-audit calendar and log, and a communication plan. Fillable templates are included for every part.
Why this course
- Built on the rules: OSHA’s inspection and citation rules (29 CFR 1903), injury reporting (29 CFR 1904.39), the Laboratory Standard (29 CFR 1910.1450), OSHA’s Field Operations Manual, EPA’s release reporting and Audit Policy, and the 2024 International Fire Code, each cited in the lesson that uses it.
- Two settings, one course: school and company scenarios in pairs, with strong answers to compare against yours.
- A companion to the Chemical Hygiene Officer Certification Pathway and the Chemical Hygiene Officer Leadership capstone: the pathway teaches the technical work, the capstone teaches leading it, and this course teaches what to do when something goes wrong.
- Online and self-paced: work through it on your own schedule.
