School District ends background checks for volunteers

[MickeySP]

I did not say every pedophile gets convicted. I said there are no plea deals made to CSC charges with a minor, none. Two different concepts there.

More often than not pedophiles do plead in my experience. However they do so straight up on the charges, no plea deal made. Defense attorneys usually use the plea in their request for sentencing consideration from the judge, however the charge the defendant pleads to is straight on the nose as charged -- absolutely not simple assault.

Okay, okay. Talk to me in 20 years. Never is a word that does not apply in the real world.


Btw that comes with a gentle pat on the head.

 

[DopeyDame]

Our school district does background checks for parents who will be alone with children - so if you are chaperoning a field trip, you need a background check. But to volunteer in the school under direct teacher supervision (ie, holiday parties) they just run your name through the sex offender database. That seems like a reasonable compromise. I can absolutely see how a full background check will cause some parents to hesitate to volunteer, but I also understand that other non-sex-crimes issues would be important to know about in some scenarios.

 

[aprilgail]

Yes, parents are restricted, not just in visiting their children at school, but at least from what I'm seeing from also seeing the content of what's being taught.

As a child, I remember bringing home all of my textbooks, having to cover them with a paper bag cover, and be responsible for it for the duration of the school year. Now, at my children's school- and I suspect many others- kids are not allowed to bring home their books. I feel that one reason is to limit what the parent is seeing when it comes to their children's education. The school says it's to protect school property (which is actually taxpayer property), but they can always bill a parent for lost of damaged materials as schools have been doing for ages.

Our kids leave their books at school so they don't have to lug all that around with them home and back- they are issued a second identical set of books to keep at home.

 

[cabanafrau]

Okay, okay. Talk to me in 20 years. Never is a word that does not apply in the real world.


Btw that comes with a gentle pat on the head.

Aw, bless your heart, aren't you just the sweetest?

Good golly gee, maybe I can't believe what I've been seeing with my own two eyes in a courtroom on a daily basis.

 

[MickeySP]

Aw, bless your heart, aren't you just the sweetest?

Good golly gee, maybe I can't believe what I've been seeing with my own two eyes in a courtroom on a daily basis.

Since you are the only person to ever be in a courtroom you must know ......you know what never mind.

8 years meet 31 years.

 

[cabanafrau]

That's interesting. Most of my assumptions are based on personal experience in SE Mich. Hopefully that means things have changed? In the 90s it was obnoxiously bad, and I saw a lot of it first hand because my brother was one of those kids who got the "get out of consequences" card, for a price, while kids in my social circle were charged with possession after searches of their ashtrays or "intent to sell" for having two joints in a cigarette pack (as though any cop or prosecutor is so naive about how pot is sold).

From what little I've seen of CSC situations (just one friend who picked up an underaged girl in a bar), I tend to agree with your position there. Even in that situation, with the girl admitting to using a fake ID to get into an age-restricted environment and to consenting to sex, there was no option for him to plead to a charge that didn't require sex offender registration. The plea was strictly no jail time in light of the circumstances.

I've had plenty of discussions with a wide array of judges about how they are handling the petty, garden variety teen cases. What seems to hold consistent across the judges is they try to handle the cases based on their assessment of and the information that's been gathered about the kids. I've seen them be very scary in demeanor towards the kids who all evidence points to just being a dumb kid who screwed up -- hoping they scare the snot out of them so they won't dare venture that way again. Where they tend to sentence more harshly is the kids who show signs of being hardened to the experience or to whom the experience tends to be no big deal. It doesn't cut across socio economic lines the way we might expect. The dumb kid who screwed up gets scared, gets a punishment that if you really look at it hits all the hard line requirements a parent would want -- go to school, do well in school, maybe get a job to pay some restitution or fines. The kid who seems hardened or indifferent gets a sentence that involves a lot of monitoring and a lot of consequences of screwing up, with any kind of incarceration the very last choice. They're hoping the hardline monitoring works to pull them away from trouble and they mature enough to want to avoid dealing with all of the restrictions and decide it's easier to straighten up.

It doesn't always work but there are a lot of people working in the system that genuinely are in it to turn these kids around. The average person watching in the courtroom might think otherwise, the kids and their parents generally think otherwise for sure. But if you're able to watch more long-term across multiple cases you'd be floored at the celebration when they get one turned back around -- and the genuine heartbreaks when a screwup really messes up again or the hardened kids get worse. Sometimes the nastiest probation agents and the hardest judges are actually the ones who take it really hard, even if the irate parents would never believe it's possible.

 

[DopeyDame]

I've had plenty of discussions with a wide array of judges about how they are handling the petty, garden variety teen cases. What seems to hold consistent across the judges is they try to handle the cases based on their assessment of and the information that's been gathered about the kids. I've seen them be very scary in demeanor towards the kids who all evidence points to just being a dumb kid who screwed up -- hoping they scare the snot out of them so they won't dare venture that way again. Where they tend to sentence more harshly is the kids who show signs of being hardened to the experience or to whom the experience tends to be no big deal. It doesn't cut across socio economic lines the way we might expect. The dumb kid who screwed up gets scared, gets a punishment that if you really look at it hits all the hard line requirements a parent would want -- go to school, do well in school, maybe get a job to pay some restitution or fines. The kid who seems hardened or indifferent gets a sentence that involves a lot of monitoring and a lot of consequences of screwing up, with any kind of incarceration the very last choice. They're hoping the hardline monitoring works to pull them away from trouble and they mature enough to want to avoid dealing with all of the restrictions and decide it's easier to straighten up.

It doesn't always work but there are a lot of people working in the system that genuinely are in it to turn these kids around. The average person watching in the courtroom might think otherwise, the kids and their parents generally think otherwise for sure. But if you're able to watch more long-term across multiple cases you'd be floored at the celebration when they get one turned back around -- and the genuine heartbreaks when a screwup really messes up again or the hardened kids get worse. Sometimes the nastiest probation agents and the hardest judges are actually the ones who take it really hard, even if the irate parents would never believe it's possible.

My dad was an ADA for a while, and this rings true. He also said that sending a kid to juvie was the absolute last choice - it typically happened when the judge really didn't believe that being at home was a better option, either because of total lack of parental oversight or because the child desperately needed to be taken away from the circle of friends he had fallen in with.

 

[cabanafrau]

Since you are the only person to ever be in a courtroom you must know ......you know what never mind.

8 years meet 31 years.

I'm pretty sure that since it's policy spoken on the record routinely in open court by prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges that it's not very much to my credit that I've managed to grasp the concept in less than 8 years. Who knows how many more great mysteries I might uncover if I were young enough to be here 31 years?

 

[Minnesota!]

Our diocese makes all schools undergo Virtus training, and background checks with fingerprints. To maintain your cleared status to do any activities in the school/church, you have to do online training each month (that's nothing, really a joke imho). No doubt this was put in place due to priest sexual scandals. Sad.

It's not a big deal to do the steps to me. The Virtus training took 1 afternoon and it was depressing, but I want to be a room parent and help with class parties so I sucked it up. Is it going to deter all bad people? Absolutely not. But can it deter some? Sure can. And I'd rather keep some away versus none.

Our diocese does Virtus, too. But, it's a one time shot that lasts, as far as we have discovered, indefinitely. We are going on 6 years now with nothing else. No monthly training, either.

 

[fly girl]

Our diocese does Virtus, too. But, it's a one time shot that lasts, as far as we have discovered, indefinitely. We are going on 6 years now with nothing else. No monthly training, either.

Wow, you don't have to do the monthly bulletins? We have to and if you miss any they revoke your Virtus compliance status.

It really is nothing. Typically 5 paragraphs and a multiple choice question at the end. It covers everything from human trafficking to cyber bullying. The question at the end is so easy, you usually don't have to read it.

I think it is really just used as a way to keep the parent/volunteer on active status.

 

[Minnesota!]

Wow, you don't have to do the monthly bulletins? We have to and if you miss any they revoke your Virtus compliance status.

It really is nothing. Typically 5 paragraphs and a multiple choice question at the end. It covers everything from human trafficking to cyber bullying. The question at the end is so easy, you usually don't have to read it.

I think it is really just used as a way to keep the parent/volunteer on active status.

Nope. Dh did the Virtus training when my oldest was either in preschool or kindergarten. He is in 6th now. That is the last time he had to do anything...he chaperone's and is a scout leader, etc.

I never did it....volunteering in a school is a version of hell for me

 

[fly girl]

I never did it....volunteering in a school is a version of hell for me

I understand! The big thing I do is room parent (which basically is show up for 3 class parties and rotate story time, games, crafts, or snacks). That I enjoy doing since it is in small groups with the teacher present and kids love party days. Easy peasy! I also sign up to help with Lego Club (another easy gig).

People love to chaperone for field trips -- have at it! I'm not a fan.

And I am not your person for the PTO. This is exactly what I would do ...



My introvert self doesn't care for the walks/socials/gala events. Just let me cut a check and be done.

 

[Dread Pirate]

I'm a licensed teacher, and I keep my certification up even though I'm not in the classroom currently. That means I have a criminal history check completed when I renew my license every few years, plus I have to keep up on my PGP (continuing education) to renew. When my kids were younger, the schools LOVED having me as a volunteer and as a chaperone, because they knew I had already had my background check completed, and knew what I was doing in the classroom.
I work as a probation officer, and there are quite a few of our clients (AKA criminals) that shouldn't be in the schools as volunteers or chaperones. Thanks to those background checks, these people aren't.

 

[Colleen27]

Our diocese does Virtus, too. But, it's a one time shot that lasts, as far as we have discovered, indefinitely. We are going on 6 years now with nothing else. No monthly training, either.

It is the same for my girls' school. DH & I both went through the training 3 years ago when our girls started there because the archdiocese requires it, but that was the end of it. We get e-mails about the updates and bulletins added to the website but don't have any obligation to do anything with that content. Our school is so small - 8 kids in DD7's grade at the elem, 28 in DD14's graduating class at the high school - that I think they rely heavily on getting to know the families rather than on more formal processes.

Actually, that got me thinking of another downside of background checks... Are they repeated for most of you? Our public schools do them on first contact but it is a one-and-done process. My background check from when we moved to our current district when DS was in 5th grade still covers my volunteering now that he's a HS junior, and would all the way through DD7's high school graduation if we'd sent her to public school. A lot can happen in the 13 years one child is in the school system, even more in the 20+ that parents with several children might be involved as volunteers. And the school wouldn't know about any of it because the background check is an "intake" requirement that isn't repeated.

 

[Mkrop]

PA law just changed the background check to every 3 years vs every 5 years. So we have to redo ours