Should parents who volunteer in schools be fingerprinted and subject to background checks?

[Anonymous]

Yes. You don't know who anyone is. When I presented a course to a middle school in Austin, I was subjected to a background check. Just because somebody is a parent doesn't mean they are harmless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is equired in Baltimore City schools even for people who volunteer in the classroom. You must be fingerprinted at district headquarters. I am surprised it isn't required elsewhere.

So if you want to do something like chaperone a field trip, you have to go get fingerprinted at police district headquarters?

What problem are we trying to solve here, exactly?

This is required for everyone apparently including parents. Have you ever looked at the sex offenders' registry? There are some parents on it at the school where I work. I wouldn't want a person coming into my child's school to volunteer who has a record. Would you? How else would the school know if they didn't send that person for a background check?

Well, it's up to you. Would you rather support parent participation, even though it may include parents who have a criminal record or are on the sex offenders' registry but have never (as far as anybody knows) caused any problems by volunteering at school, or do you think that less parent participation (including among parents who have done nothing wrong but don't want to go (or just haven't gone) through fingerprinting and a background check) is an acceptable price to pay for making sure that nobody with a criminal record is allowed to volunteer at school?

I would rather support parent participation than discourage parent participation.

[Anonymous]

We do in Catholic schools. You have to have a background check, fingerprinting, and attend a class called "Virtus" .

http://www.arlingtondiocese.org/childprotection/child_protect_virtus.aspx

[Anonymous]

How hard is it to restrict adults from being alone with students during school hours? Parent volunteers at our school never are in a position where they are alone with a student. They are in the classroom with the teacher and 30 other kids. They are in the media center with the staff, teacher, and other kids.

Any principal that wants to keep kids safe in their schools needs to disallow staff and volunteers from having access to molest a kid in school. There should be strict restrictions on any one-on-one situation with a closed door. The school nurse, guidance counselor for example. There is no reason why a classroom teacher, music teacher or volunteer should EVER be allowed to have one child in a room alone with a closed door.

On the question of after school programs, these are run by a variety of groups most have no affiliation with the school , PTA or parents and MCPS just rents out the space. IMO, organizations should be required to identify whether their staff or volunteers have undergone background checks or not. Parents can then decide whether they trust or don't trust a group to supervise their child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is equired in Baltimore City schools even for people who volunteer in the classroom. You must be fingerprinted at district headquarters. I am surprised it isn't required elsewhere.

So if you want to do something like chaperone a field trip, you have to go get fingerprinted at police district headquarters?

What problem are we trying to solve here, exactly?

This is required for everyone apparently including parents. Have you ever looked at the sex offenders' registry? There are some parents on it at the school where I work. I wouldn't want a person coming into my child's school to volunteer who has a record. Would you? How else would the school know if they didn't send that person for a background check?

But the unintended consequence of this is that most Kindergarten parents can't volunteer, or come to lunch, or bring their kids cupcakes on their birthday, or chaperone field trips before about December, because that's how long it takes for the background checks to go through.

I think that running all parent names through the sexual offender registry (which takes minutes, as opposed to months like fingerprinting), and excluding anyone who comes up, and then allowing other parents to volunteer, contingent on line of sight supervision by a paid staff member, is a reasonable middle ground.

[Anonymous]

I think PG county requires a background check for all parent volunteers (chaperoning fieldtrips, regular volunteers in classroom), but not for something like presenting at career day, having lunch with your child, etc. They do evening open houses to facilitate background checks and anyone can go to the county school board office and do the checks there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is equired in Baltimore City schools even for people who volunteer in the classroom. You must be fingerprinted at district headquarters. I am surprised it isn't required elsewhere.

So if you want to do something like chaperone a field trip, you have to go get fingerprinted at police district headquarters?

What problem are we trying to solve here, exactly?

This is required for everyone apparently including parents. Have you ever looked at the sex offenders' registry? There are some parents on it at the school where I work. I wouldn't want a person coming into my child's school to volunteer who has a record. Would you? How else would the school know if they didn't send that person for a background check?

But the unintended consequence of this is that most Kindergarten parents can't volunteer, or come to lunch, or bring their kids cupcakes on their birthday, or chaperone field trips before about December, because that's how long it takes for the background checks to go through.

I think that running all parent names through the sexual offender registry (which takes minutes, as opposed to months like fingerprinting), and excluding anyone who comes up, and then allowing other parents to volunteer, contingent on line of sight supervision by a paid staff member, is a reasonable middle ground.

Fingerprinting results shouldn't take months if done electronically, rather than ink rolled. I used to do faculty background checks at a local (non-school) educational institution, and we would send folks to get printed at a center on Wisconsin Ave. we would get the results back in 36 hours, tops.

The issue here would be price, I'd think. This costs about $37, if I'm remembering correctly, but that was for both MD and federal results. Don't know if it would be less expensive if you were just running a state check. (I'm in another state now, at a co-op where all volunteer parents have to be printed--even though we're never alone with the students--and it wasn't a problem at all.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was shocked that background checks weren't required in Fairfax County when we moved. In our previous state, you could not get past the front office until your background check had been processed (no fingerprinting). You can't have lunch with your child, attend a field trip, visit the classroom..... Until your background check is submitted and processed. They also checked IDs every single time you came into the school. I volunteered tbree times a week and they still had to check my ID every time I walked into the school. And we lived in community with no real crime. I was really surprised at how laid back my kids' Fairfax elementary school was about security.

This was the same case at my previous school district in another state. I used to volunteer every week and the administrators knew me by name. However, I still had to get my ID swipe at every visit. Every school year volunteers had to renew their background checks. After 20 years of working for a child abuse prevention agency, I'm glad that the school had a strict policy in place for volunteers because you can never be too careful. Parents who want to volunteer in schools should have a background check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is equired in Baltimore City schools even for people who volunteer in the classroom. You must be fingerprinted at district headquarters. I am surprised it isn't required elsewhere.

So if you want to do something like chaperone a field trip, you have to go get fingerprinted at police district headquarters?

What problem are we trying to solve here, exactly?

This is required for everyone apparently including parents. Have you ever looked at the sex offenders' registry? There are some parents on it at the school where I work. I wouldn't want a person coming into my child's school to volunteer who has a record. Would you? How else would the school know if they didn't send that person for a background check?

But the unintended consequence of this is that most Kindergarten parents can't volunteer, or come to lunch, or bring their kids cupcakes on their birthday, or chaperone field trips before about December, because that's how long it takes for the background checks to go through.

I think that running all parent names through the sexual offender registry (which takes minutes, as opposed to months like fingerprinting), and excluding anyone who comes up, and then allowing other parents to volunteer, contingent on line of sight supervision by a paid staff member, is a reasonable middle ground.

Fingerprinting results shouldn't take months if done electronically, rather than ink rolled. I used to do faculty background checks at a local (non-school) educational institution, and we would send folks to get printed at a center on Wisconsin Ave. we would get the results back in 36 hours, tops.

The issue here would be price, I'd think. This costs about $37, if I'm remembering correctly, but that was for both MD and federal results. Don't know if it would be less expensive if you were just running a state check. (I'm in another state now, at a co-op where all volunteer parents have to be printed--even though we're never alone with the students--and it wasn't a problem at all.)

I'm in DC, and I can only talk about the fingerprinting process here which requires you to go down to the court house during very specific hours. You're rolled electronically, but the results still don't come back for a long time. If it's different in MD, I can't help with that.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

My three kids are in three different privates. ALL required fingerprinting (they don't attend Catholic/parochial schools). To me it's a no brainer, and doesn't seem to discourage parent volunteers or participation.