Parents looking to volunteer their time to help local students may soon find themselves volunteering their police records and fingerprints as well.
Belpre City Schools is the first of the six Washington County school districts to propose a measure that would require police background and fingerprint checks for some of its volunteers. If the final version is passed by the school board, the new mandate would apply only to those volunteers who would spend time alone with students such as on an overnight field trip, said school board member Sandy Winans.
Background checks and fingerprints would cost the volunteer nearly $40. The new policy would not include homeroom mothers who help in the classroom while the teacher is present.
“I think it’s our responsibility as a board to do anything in our power to make sure that anyone working with our children has a favorable background,” Winans said.
At the Sept. 16 Belpre Board of Education meeting, member William Abbott opposed the background checks, saying they will not make much of a difference. Abbott, a former Belpre police chief, said background checks can sometimes be inaccurate or contain outdated information.
Winans conceded background checks and fingerprints will not be foolproof.
“Just because someone has no record, it doesn’t mean he’s clean, but if we’ve done our checks then we’ve done all we can,” Winans said.
On Sept. 17, a teacher’s aide at Waverly Elementary in Wood County, was arrested for allegedly touching a student in a sexual way. A background check had yielded no former complaints against the man. Any teacher, substitute, coach or aide hired by a public school district in Ohio and West Virginia must undergo both a background checks and fingerprinting. The extent of check on volunteers is left up to each district.
At Marietta City Schools, volunteers must offer two character references, undergo a review by the building principal and be approved by the school board before they work with students. Background police checks are not mandatory, but volunteers are asked if they have been convicted of a felony. More than 200 volunteers were approved by the Marietta school board for the fall season.
“There’s a safety net there,” Marietta Middle School Principal Mark Doebrich said. “Before I sign my approval, I find out who this person is. I need to know the parent or I ask teachers about the parent,” Doebrich said.
Phillips Elementary parent Susan Smith volunteers her days off work to help students with tests and studies at her daughters’ school.
“I like to stay close and see what’s going on in the schools and help the best way I can,” Smith said as she gave a kindergarten test to students. Volunteers are needed to give the test because it must be administered individually, while the teacher watches the rest of the class. Smith said she also volunteers at the school book fair.
Although Marietta does not require police checks, Smith said she wouldn’t mind the extra requirements and cost.
“I’d pay for it,” Smith said. “My kids mean the world to me and I think it’s important for there to be the proper background checks.”
Doebrich said he isn’t so sure every parent would be so willing to undergo the checks.
“I think it would hurt the situation because it would be cumbersome and a cost to the volunteer,” the middle school principal said. “What if I just want to work with my kid one day at Camp Hervida?”
Belpre Superintendent Tim Swarr said he does not want to discourage volunteers with his district’s new requirements.
“Most of the time a certified Belpre City Schools employee is there with them, so it won’t affect many volunteers, probably about 10 percent,” Swarr said.
At Frontier’s Lawrence Elementary, Principal Bill Creighton said the school’s small size (about 150 students) is an advantage in finding trusted volunteers with no police checks.
“We know who the parents are and we can screen them ourselves,” Creighton said.
Principal Bob Forbes at Fort Frye’s Beverly Elementary agreed with Creighton and said he goes on to hire many of his volunteers as teachers’ aides and cooks.
Forbes, Creighton and Doebrich said their districts’ system of finding volunteers has so far yielded positive results. If a red flag was to arise with a volunteer, the principal, or any person for that matter, can request a criminal record at their local police agency. Unlike the full background checks, these reports are free, but are only limited to the local area.