Incident Reporting of Accidents
Harm goes beyond just hitting and also goes into verbal such as “I’d like to hit that guy” or “X type of people are st^8id”. We can’t tolerate that in any capacity.
It’s extremely important, that all students agree to a standard of safety and openness. In the event of an accident or purposeful misconduct, an Incident Report will be logged with the students involved and witnessed by an instructor. All incidents and their results are kept confidential and only available to the affected students. Incidents, once filed, are kept confidentially and only circulated among instructors in order to best serve our students preventing continued issues resulting from the event and as a means of documentation. The purpose of this is to be compliant with our insurance and follow proper business safety and accountability. If you are involved in an incident, you are informed of the resulting Incident Report being written up and its investigation.
In order to rank, individuals must attain a minimum class count before progressing. If an individual is involved in a recorded Incident – not by accident but because of purpose, their class count may be reset to ZERO and may be potentially disqualified from the Knights program or attending classes further.
Example A: Student A comes 9 times and is ready to test, one day they’re practicing and they say something really disrespectful and there are witnesses – Their class count is reset.
Example B: Student A has a reputation of not tightening their sabers and reviewing their equipment or class. After 2 accidents of sabers flying out of the handle and a verbal warning decides not to check their saber at the beginning of class. A resulting accident occurs as a result, hits someone by accident AFTER they were verbally warned, their class count is reset.
If a Knight: Candidate is still recovering from their last incident and they cause another Incident, then it would be recommended that they do not become a Knight at all. NOT everyone needs to be a Knight. The idea behind it is to be an instructor and we should not have someone disruptive to the safety guidelines and potentially giving us a bad reputation or worse, injuring someone.
In addition, if after an incident that went unreported but there were witnesses to the event, the instructor or student wishes to move forward with reporting the incident, the leadership can regroup and determine if this qualifies as an incident and determine whether they report it as a formal Incident Report or if they get a Verbal Warning and no Incident Report is recorded. The maximum amount of time for an incident to be reported after is 7 days. If it is agreed to move forward, then we make a note in the Online Incident report but there’s no need to have written version with signatures. We do need to inform the person who committed the infraction.
SaberCraft Instructors have an option to lighten and “reduce the sentence”.
Instructors do NOT get their class counts reset from incidents resulting due to an accident or an accidental occurence unless it has been determined that the incident that they were involved in was done out of malicious intent and not accidentally. Knights (non-instructors) may have their class counts reset based on the recommendation of the leadership.
Disqualifications from the Knights Program
A person may be disqualified for the Knights program if any of these conditions arise via a formal complaint:
- Candidate refuses to follow the Restraints, specifically Rule #1: No Harm – this includes both physical and verbally.
- Candidate behaves inappropriately either in class or at public gatherings
- The team does not feel the candidate is keeping their safety in mind
- Injury to anyone in class (both in and outside of class)
- The individual is involved with poaching students for another organization without proper authorization.
- Candidate misses classes continually – see Rank Suspension
- Candidate takes upon themselves to represent SaberCraft or LUMINA to the public without permission from the governing body
Rank Suspension
A Knight may continue to take classes and retain their rank but cannot instruct/advise students if their rank is suspended. Rank may be restored as per the conditions listed. Ranks suspension will occur under the following conditions:
- A matter involving a disqualifier above occurs. Penalty will be determined by SaberCraft Instructors (leadership).
- Knights who have missed 5 or more consecutive classes have their rank standing suspended. They can renew their status by scheduling a 1 hour skill assessment on their current rank proficiencies with the head instructor. Upon completing the skill assessment successfully, all rights are restored.
- Skill assessments are scheduled by leadership of the group and there is no guaranteed time but could take 1-6 months.
Please understand, just as in any dance/martial arts studio, many lessons are covered on a weekly basis. We have new initiatives and choreographies every season (3 months). LUMINA meets do not count as classes. Keep in mind that LUMINA meets are for sparring and sport. They are not meant for teaching. Sitting a class out does not count as class attendance.
