Also let me add that our district gets a list going of parents who want to be fingerprinted and they fingerprint them when the list is full to keep the manpower/cost down.
Also the school may tell you that a volunteer will never be left alone with your child but I have found that to not be true!! They are alone w/ our children. Unless your school has someone watching the bathroom, that is a prime place for a volunteer to go find a child alone...
I am curious why you oppose fingerprinting. Isn't our childrens protection more important than saving a few bucks on the cost of fingerprinting, and yes fingerprinting will not keep all the "bad guys" away some are never convicted, but just knowing that they do have to be fingerprinted will keep the ones who have something to hide away!
And no the fingerprinting policy has not made us have less volunteers, parents are proud that their district is protecting our children!!!!! [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]
The fact that you are not "thrilled" scares me!!!
In todays world there are wierd crazy people that want to hurt kids... And where better to find the kids but a school.
Yes our district dose fingerprinting of volunteers! If they didn't I would be worried. Volunteers are put in positions of authority of our children, they have many opportunties to molest, kidnap, or hurt a child... I want to know that my district is doing something to "weed" out the people that have been flagged as should not work w/kids.
Just the other day in our local newspaper there was a story of a man who had molested a child, upon reading the story I realized he was a father of a child at my daughter/sons school. What if he had been working in their class, attending fieldtrips... Our ditrict has one person who works at the district office who recieves all the fingerprinting info. back from the police, so if a parent dose not "pass" the whole world will not know, they just will not be on the approved list... They only turn people away who have been convicted of a major crime, or a crime against a child.
Maybe I am a overprotective mom, but this subject is really important to me. I think that it is the school's responsibility to protect my child while they are at school, and if fingerprinting parents to see if they have ever been convicted of hurting a child is how they do it that great with me... [img]tongue.gif[/img]
I hear it discussed a lot, but then talks go round and round on privacy and cost issues (who's going to absorb the expense?).
Many feel it's unnecessary for parent volunteers who have a right to be in the school anyway. I think general safety rules are always followed. Volunteers are never in an isolated place with one child, it's typically parents in the classroom, maybe off in a corner - but in full view of the teachers and the other kids.
So the end result I've seen over the last 2 or 3 years is that the subject comes up, there are too many tricky issues to deal with, so nothing happens EXCEPT no external volunteers are recruited. So this means retirement centers, local companies, community service groups that might be called upon to help with a mentoring program or in other volunteer efforts aren't invited as was sometimes discussed as a volunteer expansion plan in the past.
Let me be clear - I'm not professing an opinion one way or the other, or even criticizing the school for lack of direction. It's a tough issue, and I also have a hard time myself balancing safety concerns against privacy/philosophical issues. I'm simply stating what I've seen happen in our area.
I've heard that our district may require fingerprinting and/or background checks for parent volunteers. I'm not thrilled with the idea for several reasons, some philosophical, some practical.
Do any of your districts have fingerprinting/ background checks and do you feel there has been any impact on parental involvement?
