Dunham School*

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. Response: Our District Office Manager is designated as the person responsible for accessing all fingerprint information, and is trained in all aspects of the process. The Superintendent is the alternate.
• 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, Response: This information will be brought to our Board of Trustees and will be taken under advisement.
• 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. Response: All volunteers are required to sign in each time they work in a classroom. This log sheet is visible by my secretary and is available for any public scrutiny.
• R6
  Schools should routinely check out names of adult volunteers on Megan's Law website (a public posting of sexual predators) even if fingerprinting is scheduled, and always do so if no fingerprinting is scheduled for that volunteer. The principal (myself) routinely checks out the Megan's Law Response: Website. .
• R7
  School districts should request criminal activity record from the Sonoma County Superior Court Records Division on any adult wanting to volunteer with students. This service is available at no cost to a district. Response: Our district was not aware of this service. We will meet and discuss this at our next Board meeting.
• R8
  School districts should, individually or cjollectively, request that the DOJ implement a system to confirm school district receipt Notices of Subsequent Arrest. A system that would require the DOJ to follow up if no confirmation was received would at least give school districts some assurance that information trusted to the U.S. Mail or electronic mail servers is actually being received. Response: If the request is to be a collective one then it seems that this response should come from the County Superintendent.
• R9
  School districts should request FBI responses on all classified employees and volunteers that they 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. Response: We will take this under advisement.
• 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 the normal school day or hours. Response: We already do this for overnight trips, but because students are always with the teacher on regular field trips we do not have volunteers get fingerprints for these.
• R11
  School districts should implement provisions of Education Code Sections 33193 and45125.2 requiring that certain independent contractors and employees of contractors undergo fingerprinting and background checks. Response: We already do this.
• R13
  School districts should not allow new employees to begin work until all pre- employment requirements are met. Most specifically, this means that all fingerprinting and • criminal history responses that are required must have been completed and properly evaluated. Response: We already do this. The S.O. should make available to all school districts information on how to
• R14
  access services available to them through the S.O. that would aid districts in determining if individuals should be approved to serve as volunteers in our schools and at school sponsored activities. Response: As this is a recommendation for the Sheriff's Office it does not seem appropriate for me to respond to this. If it were available we would certainly use the information.
• 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. Response: Thank you for the input. Our Board will take it under advisement.