If you think the chaperones that are going along with your children’s school trips are safe, you may be sorely mistaken. According to research, most school chaperones are not subject to background checks. This information came to light after a fourth grade school field trip in Seattle. Just last week on December 15th, 2011, a fourth grade parent who was accompanying his child on a field trip recognized another parent who was also chaperoning. This doesn’t sound extremely unusual, until you realize that the second parent was recognized because he was a felon on “Washington’s Most Wanted” list.
Though the actual school district does require background checks for criminal history for all of their parent chaperones, this particular parent showed up to the field trip last minute and wanted to go along. The school allowed him to without a background check for criminal records and it wasn’t until the other parent recognized him that they knew he was a felon with a warrant out for his arrest, putting the children teachers and other parents in danger.
When schools implement and enforce background screening requirements for chaperone’s and use companies to swiftly and efficiently run background checks, they are taking the right steps to prevent this from happening. With a search of a multi jurisdictional criminal database results can be returned in real time like the ones offered by backgroundchecks.com this could even be done the same day as the trip. If they don’t, it is the responsibility of the school to stop unauthorized parents from attending school functions.
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Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/School-background-checks-on-chaperones-not-always-2406295.php
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About Michael Klazema The author
Michael Klazema is the lead author and editor for Dallas-based backgroundchecks.com with a focus on human resource and employment screening developments
