Saturday, December 27, 2014

Doing It "For The Children" (not): Pa. Union teachers want more money for enforcing nearly pointless Sandusky-inspired child protection mandate

12/27/2014

The vast majority of sex offenders have NEVER been caught!


Sandusky-inspired child protection law burdensome for schools



new state law designed to provide an additional layer of protection for children is proving to be a bureaucratic headache, not to mention an unfunded mandate, for school officials.  

Act 153 requires anyone who has direct contact with children or are responsible for their welfare whether in a paid or unpaid position to update their criminal history background check and child abuse clearance every three years. It begins to take effect on Wednesday.

The law is a part of a package of measures put in place to address deficiencies in child protective laws that crystallized in the aftermath of theJerry Sandusky child sexual assault scandal.

Several school districts surveyed say this law, though well intentioned, carries with it some unintended consequences in making sure everyone comes into and remains in compliance.

"We want all our students and staff to be safe and doing the checks is a way of doing it," said Camp Hill School District Superintendent David Reeder. "It requires some level of infrastructure to process everything that needs to be in place."

In his district, there is no "human resources department" to maintain a database of employees and volunteers' clearances and make sure all checks are up to date. Instead, he said it falls to district office staff who already handle a myriad of other responsibilities.

"Being a small district can be a double-edged sword," Reeder said. "We don't have as many employees to track but we don't have an employee to track them."

The burden associated with tracking which the phase-in of the clearances also is a source of frustration. It requires current employees with clearances older than three years as of Dec. 31 to get new ones within a year. Those with clearances less than three years old expire need to get them on their third-year anniversary. Current volunteers who don't have their clearances have until July 1 to obtain them.

Central Dauphin School District Superintendent Carol Johnson said, "I can tell you that trying to calculate the phase-in requirement for each employee will be at least as time consuming as having them all do it simultaneously."

The law requires employees and volunteers to submit to a state police criminal history check ($10), a child abuse clearance from the state Department of Human Services ($10) and a federal criminal history check obtained by submitting fingerprints to the state police or an authorized agent for the FBI ($28.50).

Depending on district requirements, volunteers may be relieved of undergoing the FBI check if they have lived in Pennsylvania continuously for the last 10 years and sign an affidavit saying they did not commit crimes outside the state.

Who pays for the background checks for employees and volunteers is another issue that several districts continue to ponder. The law didn't come with additional state funding to cover the cost.

Pennsylvania School Boards Association spokesman Steve Robinson said the law left it open as to who pays for the clearances.

"Some districts will cover it. Some maybe never covered it," he said. "It's going to vary."

West Shore School District spokesman Ryan Argot said in his district, "responsibility for the cost of implementing these changes has not yet been determined: however, costs of a similar nature are often the responsibility of the individual seeking employment or volunteer opportunities with the district."

The district's website indicates that currently volunteers are responsible for covering the cost of their clearances.

In Northern Lebanon School District, Superintendent Don Bell said the district hadn't required its volunteers to obtain the clearances before now because the volunteers "were not specifically approved to be responsible for the welfare of a child."

However, the new law's broader definition of who must obtain clearances extends to anyone having direct contact with children. That "appears to cover almost any activity that includes children. Therefore, it appears that we must now require clearances for volunteers," Bell said.

"This is yet an other unfunded mandate underneath the Christmas tree ... and so the new year starts with the first unfunded task of 2015 to implement an albeit well-intended but definitely not-thought-through law."



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