Starting in January, thousands of Pinellas County school volunteers will face more stringent background checks than they\u2019ve encountered in the past.<\/p>\n
They could wind up paying for the service.<\/p>\n
As part of its effort to ensure that volunteers have no criminal history, the school district will begin requiring anyone who has direct unsupervised contact with students to undergo what\u2019s called a Level 2 screening. That review includes fingerprinting attached to a statewide database that provides daily updates on any new activities that might disqualify them from working in the schools.<\/p>\n
The approach is similar to what Pasco County schools began more than a year ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cSafety is going to be a priority,\u201d Deputy Superintendent Stephanie Woodford said.<\/p>\n
About half of the district\u2019s approximately 18,000 volunteers already go through a Level 2 review, which costs on average about $85 every five years. The other half have not, though.<\/p>\n
Asking them to pay the fee to donate time to the schools \u2014 something district leaders acknowledge is critical to well running campuses \u2014 could generate a backlash.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest concerns truly has been cost,\u201d Mistine Dawe, district director of strategic partnerships, told the school board while presenting the plan during a Dec. 16 workshop. \u201cOur district is committed to not allowing that to be a barrier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawe said the Pinellas Education Foundation has set aside money to help pay for fingerprinting. Schools that receive Title I federal funds for serving low-income students also may use that grant to cover the costs, she said, and other organizations also have signaled support for the initiative.<\/p>\n
School board members applauded the concept. But they also worried about the potential effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first thought is, it\u2019s hard enough to get volunteers,\u201d board member Laura Hine said.<\/p>\n
She noted how difficult it has proven to get Level 2 volunteers in the past, even with the PTA helping pay for the fingerprinting. But at least the district allowed people to come and offer services, often without students being around, under a less stringent Level 1 category.<\/p>\n
Hine mentioned how eight volunteers recently came to help decorate the St. Petersburg High cafeteria for the holidays. If required to pay for the Level 2 screening, some might not turn up, she suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to make this as easy as possible,\u201d Hine said.<\/p>\n
Board vice chairperson Dawn Peters raised the point that many first responders, such as police officers, are not in the state database despite having thoroughly vetted backgrounds. Asked to go through another one, Peters said, \u201cThey might say they don\u2019t have the time for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She encouraged the administration to find solutions to such scenarios as it moves forward.<\/p>\n
Chairperson Caprice Edmond, meanwhile, had questions about whether the changes would impact parents who are visiting schools.<\/p>\n
Woodford said the administration has looked to other districts, including Pasco and Hillsborough, for guidance on such matters. Pasco carefully defined the differences between volunteers and visitors a month after changing its rules, amid complaints from booster clubs and other organizations that were losing participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to ask for some principals to help define that,\u201d Woodford said.<\/p>\n
Alicia McKee, president of the Pinellas Council of PTAs, said she hoped the district will find workable answers to the remaining concerns as it rolls out the system. All volunteers are supposed to have Level 2 checks on file by July.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis might be disenfranchising families,\u201d McKee said. \u201cI hope each school comes up with ways to make sure those parents can still be engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawe said all volunteers should receive communication next week letting them know about the changes and charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting in January, thousands of Pinellas County school volunteers will face more stringent background checks than they\u2019ve encountered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[50669,30022,113,596,15848,50668,26057,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-95010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-background-check","tag-criminal-history","tag-education","tag-pinellas-county","tag-pinellas-county-schools","tag-school-volunteer","tag-screening","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}