Volunteering at school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So…what findings are they going to be looking for? DUIs? Hit and runs? Larceny? It seems like the item most relevant to a school setting would be the sex offenders list, which they already check with the license. What am I missing here????

There is a mother at my children's elementary school who does not have custody or visitation of her children and uses volunteering work as her way of seeing her kids. She doesn't actually do the volunteer work she's supposed to do. I hope psychos like her are kept out. I don't know if she has a criminal record or not but assume there is something that a background check might pick up.

That's somewhat troubling.

I taught in a school where the dad and mom were splitting. (School did not know.) Dad picked the kids up and took off with them on a plane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So…what findings are they going to be looking for? DUIs? Hit and runs? Larceny? It seems like the item most relevant to a school setting would be the sex offenders list, which they already check with the license. What am I missing here????

There is a mother at my children's elementary school who does not have custody or visitation of her children and uses volunteering work as her way of seeing her kids. She doesn't actually do the volunteer work she's supposed to do. I hope psychos like her are kept out. I don't know if she has a criminal record or not but assume there is something that a background check might pick up.

That's somewhat troubling.

I taught in a school where the dad and mom were splitting. (School did not know.) Dad picked the kids up and took off with them on a plane.

And yet this process wouldn’t stop this since they weren’t a volunteer. I guess it would for the next time they go to be a volunteer since kidnapping is a felony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All for it. Especially field trip chaperones.

At typical field trips, they’re in public settings. Unless you background check all the randos, this doesn’t really lower the risk that much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All for it. Especially field trip chaperones.

Careful what you wish for. Schools need a lot of chaperones in order to make field trips happen. Hopefully they get enough parents to go through the check so they can still do this. Otherwise, that's it for field trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All for it. Especially field trip chaperones.

Careful what you wish for. Schools need a lot of chaperones in order to make field trips happen. Hopefully they get enough parents to go through the check so they can still do this. Otherwise, that's it for field trips.

Ha. Our school has very few field trips. Maybe 1 per grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All for it. Especially field trip chaperones.

At typical field trips, they’re in public settings. Unless you background check all the randos, this doesn’t really lower the risk that much.

Sounds like a lot of lazy parents. Background checks and fingerprinting is already implemented in many other districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All for it. Especially field trip chaperones.

Careful what you wish for. Schools need a lot of chaperones in order to make field trips happen. Hopefully they get enough parents to go through the check so they can still do this. Otherwise, that's it for field trips.

Ha. Our school has very few field trips. Maybe 1 per grade.

.

Ok. Let’s do the math. 1 per grade. Our school does 1 chaperone per 4 kids. About 100 kids per grade. 25 chaperones per grade. Times 6. 150 chaperones give or take minus some that have multiple kids.

[Anonymous]

Haven’t they had something like this in place (but with additional training requirements) at Catholic schools for a long time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All for it. Especially field trip chaperones.

At typical field trips, they’re in public settings. Unless you background check all the randos, this doesn’t really lower the risk that much.

Sounds like a lot of lazy parents. Background checks and fingerprinting is already implemented in many other districts.

Name some. I can’t find them. And don’t give a lazy response of “I’m not going to do your research for you”. You don’t want to be a hypocrite.

Now, supposing you do come back with actual examples instead of just spouting off with nothing to back it up, how many of them implemented it a week before school starts? How many of them are bigger in population than 9 US states? Coordination and communication is never easy when you’re dealing with that many people. So how many PTAs can’t even start working yet because they haven’t gotten through the process? Lazy? Hardly. Disorganized and poorly executed. Most definitely. But that’s par for the course with this administration.

It’s not a terrible policy. It’s just unnecessary. Background checks for a 2 time volunteer is overkill. Fingerprinting is insane. Sports and activities where you are truly alone with kids don’t often go to that extreme. The levels are not well thought out and the documentation contradicts itself all over the place. And again, school starts Monday. Call me skeptical that there will be any volunteers approved by then.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone been approved for the Level 2? How long does it take? Remote vs in person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone been approved for the Level 2? How long does it take? Remote vs in person?

I’m getting approved as a sub, even though I have no intention to sub. That really works around the whole process, and added benefit of taking pictures. Follow me for more life hacks!

[Anonymous]

So.. has anyone been approved already? How long does it take?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So.. has anyone been approved already? How long does it take?

It depends. I know a few people who have been.

FCPS employees who want to volunteer in a school are approved almost immediately. You get to enter your credentials and it will find you and speed through and you don’t have to do fingerprints.

Non-employees who’ve been through a fingerprint with FCPS since 2006 won’t have to get prints again, but their approval isn’t fast. People I know in this category have been waiting almost 2 weeks at this point and are not yet approved.

If you’ve never had fingerprints with FCPS, it seems like it’s been moving fairly quickly for those people. About a week? That said, is it going to slow down once more people find out about this and go through it?

Independent contractor badges for people like afterschool vendors seem to be delayed, maybe in relation to these changes. My parent group heard from some of the vendors we use that their badge renewals they’ve been working on since the spring haven’t gone through yet. It’ll be too bad if we have to refund families’ registration when the afterschool instructors don’t have badges. If the volunteer requirements are in response to issues like the one with the afterschool instructor last year, and now as a result of the new requirements the afterschool instructors can’t get their badges…then just wow…

The real million dollar questions are: What’s the estimated budget for this? How can they even guess how many parents are going to do this so they can know what it will cost? And then what’s the ROI? How many volunteers who apply will get denied?

[Anonymous]

First - they ought to limit volunteer hours. Ideally every parent would volunteer some, a few times a year. I don't want any neighborhood Mommy in there every week.

[Anonymous]

I wish there was a central process for volunteer background checks that all extra-curriculars could access. I have been separately background checked by Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, our church, two different sports leagues (they mandated it in the last year that all volunteers are background checked even if your volunteering is pitch counting at a baseball game. Oh and if you don’t volunteer, they charge you an extra $200). I’m just over the number of times I need to get background checked.