Oct. 3, 2011—The Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) on Friday announced it partnered with Audatex, a Solera Company, CCC Information Services, Mitchell International and CollisionWeek for its annual Collision Repair School Solutions survey.
All secondary and post-secondary schools with a collision repair program that complete the survey will receive complementary subscriptions and licenses to products from each of those companies. The survey program, which was introduced in 2010, donated more than $700,000 in subscriptions to collision schools during its first year, according to the CREF.
The Collision Repair School Solutions survey questions provide the CREF with information about collision school enrollment, placement, personnel, facilities and equipment. The CREF said the information helps create metrics to measure the future success of the collision education system.
In addition, the survey gathers information from schools on their individual needs so the CREF can approach potential industry donors with specific needs in mind. The CREF said it will use the results to track general program information, key academic performance indicators and program needs for new tools and equipment to train the students.
Schools are required to retake the survey annually in order to renew their subscription to the software licenses and CollisionWeek subscription, according to the CREF.
“The Solutions Survey is a great resource to illustrate how collision repair schools are meeting the entry-level employment needs of the collision industry, as well as highlight the need for greater investment in our schools and students,” said Scott Kruger, executive director of the CREF. “Being able to offer repair and estimating software through this program is certainly a great benefit to the schools, but the information we receive will hopefully result in even greater reward for collision repair students nationwide.”
“In these financial times, it gets to be a chore to have supplies for our students to learn with. Luxuries such as these estimating systems can be unheard of, but they certainly give our students a head start when going into the work world,” said Butch Luther, collision instructor at Maxwell High School of Technology in Lawrenceville, Ga., a school that received the subscriptions in 2010.
For more information, visit CollisionEducationFoundation.org, or contact Melissa Marscin, assistant director of grant programs for the CREF, at [email protected].
