Fingerprinting School Volunteers

Is A Turn-Off

To the Editor:

I’d like to respond to last week’s Editorial Ink Drops on full-day kindergarten. While you recognize the potential social and behavioral disadvantages of compelling all students into a full-day of kindergarten, and that studies demonstrate we shouldn’t expect any academic gains to last beyond elementary school, you believe it’s worth a try in the hopes of at least some early academic gains. You also hope full-day kindergarten is implemented in a way to minimize the disadvantages. Recognizing the importance of parental involvement, you further hope that parents will be involved in this “critical first year of schooling.” That’s a tall order of hope.

Since we haven’t yet seen the administration’s implementation plan for full-day kindergarten or their academic improvement goals, those hopes can’t yet be addressed. I’d like to address the hope for parental involvement in the kindergarten classroom.

Are you aware that if a kindergarten parent wants to help out in their child’s classroom, they must first get fingerprinted and have a background check performed? This policy was instituted last year, and due to it, as I understand, the Reed library alone lost at least eight of its regular volunteers.

Those of us who have no concerns about what a background check might turn up might at least have a concern that this very personal information (our fingerprints) would now be permanently on file with the state and the FBI — just because we want to volunteer in our own child’s school. And, we might also be concerned about how our background check report is handled and protected within the school district.

While I understand the need for school safety, I felt this new policy was perhaps a bit excessive. So I did some research, and found that even the inner city schools of New Haven don’t fingerprint their school volunteers. They perform less-invasive, non-fingerprinting background checks that instead use one’s social security number — something that is already on file with the government.

About a year ago, I presented to the superintendent my concerns about turning away parent volunteers, and that I believe we could balance school safety while still welcoming parents to volunteer. I told her about New Haven’s non-fingerprinting policy. I offered to help with any policy revision. She wasn’t interested in pursuing an alternative approach.

The result for me? After nine years of volunteering at the schools for my two children, I decided to no longer volunteer.

I have yet to find the district’s answers to basic questions, such as: What information about each volunteer is sought in background checks — criminal backgrounds, employment history, indebtedness, …? Which offenses or findings would disqualify a volunteer? How is this information protected?

I agree, and studies show, that parental involvement in the schools is vitally important to our children, especially in the kindergarten classrooms. However, rather than welcoming and encouraging parents to volunteer in Newtown’s schools, our fingerprinting policy places a large and, in my view, unnecessary roadblock in front of parents who want to be involved.

Cathy Reiss

42 Obtuse Road, Newtown                                            March 14, 2012