Coronavirus Update

Whether you have lost your job or are on the front lines of ongoing service calls, our prayers continue for your health and financial provision.  We are still serving plumbing professionals every day and are thankful for the understanding and support being expressed by our clients during this unprecedented time.

UPDATED March 10th, 2021

As COVID restrictions are lowered in Texas, we continue to recognize the freedom for individuals as well as private property owners to determine their comfort or distress over the wearing of masks and social distancing requirements.  We remain focused on delivering quality education rather than arbitrating this divisive social topic.

In order to make our courses available state-wide, we routinely utilize third-party facilities that will certainly have differing opinions and policies regarding the use of masks & social distancing on their property.  We will comply with their respective policies even as they change through the progression of COVID recovery.  If a facility hosting our course has either more restrictions or fewer restrictions than one of our clients is willing to accept, we offer other locations as well as online options and correspondence courses (for Continuing Education).

We appreciate your understanding and look forward to serving you!

UPDATED July 1st, 2020

Beginning in early June, we resumed live courses while continuing online and correspondence courses (allowing our clients to control their level of physical exposure).  The live public courses will initially follow these state and national recommendations:

• Our instructors have all indicated their desire to teach and accept the related risks
• Clients have options if they aren’t comfortable attending, including online and correspondence courses
• 6 ft social distancing is required & class sizes are limited to 50% of normal/capacity
• Hand sanitizer is available & the wearing of masks is strongly encouraged (mandated if local requirement)
• Meals are packaged with bottles or cans for drinks (in CE courses with meals)
• Attendance is not allowed if a client is symptomatic with any contagious illness

Winn’s CE Actions:

• Suspended all live (in person) courses through May consistent with Governor Abbott’s executive orders & phased approach to reopen the Texas economy.
• Requested renewal extensions for our clients with Texas plumbing licenses as well as approval to offer online virtual courses during this period of restricted public gatherings (see TSBPE actions below).
• Offering to transfer any live Continuing Education registration to a mailed correspondence course (with optional online completion) and lowered the cost of all current year correspondence courses.
• Launched online virtual webinars (beginning April 2nd) for CE, Med Gas CE, Residential & Commercial Code courses for licensing, Residential Fire Sprinkler & Water Supply Protection endorsements.
• Obtained approval from OSHA & the TSBPE to begin offering the OSHA 10 course online via live webinar (first one was April 30-May 1).
• Resumed live courses in early June following practices described above.
• Scheduled 4 “Make-Up” courses for the 2019/2020 cycle in August–3 physical and 1 online. (All other courses begin the new CPE cycle on July 1 as usual).

Our courses of up to 45 attendees are very different environments from one-on-one interactions in the field and this is uncharted territory for sure. We want to do all we can to serve our clients responsibly.  Because we are experiencing a high call volume, please consider emailing us (Info@WinnsCE.com) so we may respond as quickly as possible.  As always, we look forward to serving you and appreciate your understanding through this current health challenge.

TSBPE Actions:

• Extended licenses and registrations expiring March 31st until May 31st and requested municipalities recognize this fact by allowing permits and inspections in spite of expired license expirations during this timeframe.
• Postponed ALL exams scheduled for March 23rd through May 4th.
• Postponed all Medical Gas Installation Examinations from March 20th through May 4th.
• Cancelled all remote location (non-Austin) examinations through May 31st.
• Allowed Medical Gas Continuing Education to be offered via correspondence course again.
• Temporarily allowed (until further notice) most required training courses via LIVE VIRTUAL classroom with a 15 person limit (Plumbing & Med Gas CE, Residential Code, Commercial Code, Fire Sprinkler, WSPS, and OSHA 10 which was added to the approved list on April 17th).  This does not include the Med Gas Installation Endorsement.
  
• Temporarily waived the RMP course requirement for Responsible Master Plumber applications but it may still be offered & taken via LIVE VIRTUAL classroom.
• Correspondence CE is allowed to count toward the Tradesman exam qualifications (instead of requiring a live course) and only one CE is required for the Journeyman instead of two.
• Exam applications are being accepted if the applicant’s on-the-job experience hours are complete even if they have not been able to obtain the 24 or 48 hours of courses due to the suspensions of live courses (expecting they will be offered and completed by the scheduled exam date).
• Working on computer based testing through a 3rd party to assist with eventual recovery (however, most of those vendors have closed their facilities to exams during the COVID-19 crisis).

[Constructive comments worthy of licensed professionals are welcomed below.]