SEP 2 5 2007 Wright Elementary Casey D'Angelo, Ed.D. School District District Superintendent*

Recommendations 12

• R1
  Each public school district in Sonoma County should have at least one employee who is trained and authorized to access DOJ website within an official and specified schedule. This employee should fully understand the way in which information is to be communicated. Further in the absence of this employee, a suitable alternate person or system should be in place to responsibly retrieve valuable information as it is posted. This system should also cover notices from the DOJ sent via U.S. Mail. The Wright Elementary School District agrees with the finding. The recommendation has been fully implemented. Our personnel coordinator, Linda Landa, is the key person responsible for this task. The superintendent, Casey D'Angelo, is the back-up person.
• R4
  School districts should consider changing their policies to require successful employee applicants to pay for their own fingerprinting and background responses from DOJ and FBI. There is at least $65,000 in 06-07 school district budgets for fingerprinting. As costs are shifted to paid employees, districts could use savings to fund costs for volunteers. The Wright Elementary School District disagrees with the finding. It is already difficult to find highly qualified employees in certain categories; we do not wish to make the application process more costly or cumbersome to potential applicants than it is already. Additionally, employment costs are negotiable conditions of employment (Public Employees Relations Board—PERB). Currently, the district funds the costs of required background checks, TB clearance, and pre- employment physicals as required for employees.
• R5
  School districts should amend their policies, if needed, to allow for volunteers names to be public information and readily available so that a greater scrutiny is provided. The Wright Elementary School District feels that recommendation requires further analysis to determine what, exactly, the recommendation entails and to determine if there may be a Public Records Act issue. All volunteers sign in at each school office. This volunteer logbook is available as public information. ,
• R6
  School should routinely check out names of adult volunteers on Megan's Law website (a public positing of sexual predators) even if fingerprinting is scheduled, and always do so it if no fingerprinting is scheduled for that volunteer. The Wright Elementary School District agrees with this finding and will encourage principals and teachers to check for the names of their volunteers on the website, whenever practical and always when they have any suspicion about a potential volunteer. Additionally, we encourage our parents to check the Megan's Law website which is listed in our Parent Information packets that go home at the beginning of the year.
• R7
  School districts should request criminal activity record from the Sonoma County Superior Courts Records Division on any adult wanting to volunteer with students. This service is available at no cost to a district. The Wright Elementary School District partially disagrees with this finding. Although the idea sounds worthwhile, this recommendation seems somewhat impractical to implement with all volunteers and unnecessary as we have approximately 360 people volunteering in various capacities. Volunteers are supervised by district employees. We agree with and will implement the recommendation for those chaperoning overnight field trips.
• R8
  School districts should, individual and collectively, request that the DOJ implement a system to confirm school district receipt of Notices of Subsequent Arrest. A system that would require the DOJ to follow up if no confirmation was received and would at least give school districts some assurance that information trusted to the U.S. Mail or electronic mail services is actually being received. The Wright Elementary School District agrees with this finding and agrees to assist the County Superintendent, Dr. Wong, in writing such a letter to the DOJ on behalf of all districts. Currently, we believe we get notices of subsequent arrest. SCOE also provides us with subsequent arrest notices on substitute teachers that work in our district.
• R9
  School districts should request FBI responses on all classified employees and volunteers that they do a DOJ response regardless of the time they have lived in California. The relatively small fee of $24 to get prior criminal activity from a national database seems justifiable, reasonable and the right action to take. The Wright Elementary School District practice has been to request an FBI check if a classified employee has lived in California less than one year. Recently, the FBI rates have been reduced to $19 and this will assist the District in implementing this recommendation with all classified employees. ٠.
• R10
  School districts should require fingerprinting for all adults (paid and volunteer) involved in athletic programs, overnight field trips, off-campus field trips, and any school sponsored student activity that occurs outside of the normal school day or hours. The Wright Elementary School District partially agrees with this finding and has implemented it for athletic coaches and will implement it for overnight field trips. Currently off-campus field trips are by bus and any volunteers are directly supervised by District employees.
• R11
  School districts should implement provisions of Ed. Code Section 33193 and 45125.2 requiring that certain independent contractors and employees of contractors undergo fingerprinting and background checks. The Wright Elementary School District agrees with this finding and has implemented it in that we require contractors to confirm that their employees have undergone background checks and they are supervised by district employees while students are on campus.
• R13
  School districts should not allow new employees to begin work until all pre-employment requirements are met. Most specifically, this means all fingerprinting and criminal history responses that are required must have been completed and properly evaluated. The Wright Elementary School District agrees to this finding and has already implemented the recommendation.
• R14
  The Sheriff's Office should make available to all school districts information on how to access services available to them through the Sheriff's Office that would aid districts in determining if individuals should be approved to serve as volunteers in our schools and at school sponsored activities. The Wright Elementary School District agrees to this finding and, if the Sheriff's Office agrees, would disseminate such information to all employees. (Our volunteers are parents or grandparents of current students, Volunteer Center volunteers, and high school students on community service projects.)
• R15
  School districts should require all volunteers to sign an agreement that outlines behavior do's and don'ts and consequences if agreement terms are broken. The Wright Elementary School District agrees to this finding, although it is currently not fully implemented. Our after-school coaches do receive a packet which outlines behavior do's and don'ts and consequences if agreement terms are broken. Beginning in 2008, we will include our Governing Board Policy on volunteering as well as a document that outlines expected behaviors and consequences for volunteers in our Parent Annual Notification packet. All volunteers will receive a copy and sign the agreement as well.