Kashia Elementary School District*

Recommendations 12

• R1
  Each public school district ...should have at least one employee who is trained and authorized to access DOJ website within an official and specified schedule...In the absence of this employee, a suitable alternate person...should be in place to responsibly retrieve valuable information as it is posted. Kashia School District agrees with this recommendation and already has this recommendation in place.
• R4
  Districts should consider changing their policies to require successful employee applicants to pay for their own fingerprinting and background responses from DOJ and FBI...As costs are shifted to paid employees, district could use savings to fund costs of volunteers. Kashia will consider requiring successful employee applicants pay for their own fingerprinting and background responses from the DOJ and FBI.
• R5
  Districts should amend their policies...to allow for volunteers' names to be public information and readily available so that a greater scrutiny is provided. Kashia does not have a policy prohibiting volunteers' names from being made public. The District will treat volunteer's names as public information and will notify with a notice home to parents/guardians in order to provide greater scrutiny of volunteers. A list of volunteers' names will be submitted to the District's Board of Trustees at the beginning of each semester.
• R6
  Schools should routinely check out names of adult volunteers on Megan's Law website...even if fingerprinting is schedules, and always do so if no fingerprinting is scheduled for that volunteer. The Lead Teacher or Superintendent checks Megan's Law website before approving an adult volunteer.
• R7
  Districts should request criminal activity records from the Sonoma County Superior Court Records Division on any adult wanting to volunteer with students. The District agrees with this recommendation, especially since this information is available at no cost to the District.
• R8
  Districts...should request that the DOJ implement a system to confirm school district receipt of Notices of Subsequent Arrest. Kashia School agrees to request that the DOJ implement a system to confirm the school district receipt of Notices of Subsequent Arrest.
• R9
  Districts should request FBI responses on all classified employees and volunteers (for whom) they do a DOJ response regardless of the time they have lived in California. Kashia School agrees that a request to the FBI for a check on criminal activity by use of the national database can be justifiable and appropriate. The District contends that the State should provide funding for this endeavor.
• R10
  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. Kashia School will require fingerprint checks for all adult volunteers who will have ongoing contact with students, including athletic programs and overnight field trips. The District does not agree that all volunteers who participate in off-campus field trips should be fingerprinted. Volunteers for one-time events who are under line-of-sight supervision by a school employee will not require fingerprinting. Districts should implement provisions of Education Code Sections 33193 and
• R11
  45125.2 requiring that certain independent contractors and employees of contractors undergo fingerprinting and background checks. Kashia School already implements provisions of Education Code Sections 33193 and 45125.2 requiring that certain independent contractors and employees of contractors undergo fingerprinting and background checks.
• R13
  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. All fingerprint and required criminal history checks are completed and evaluated before new employees begin work.
• R14
  The S.O. should make available to all school districts information on how to 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. The District agrees with this recommendation.
• R15
  District should require all volunteers to sign an agreement that outlines behavior dos and don'ts and consequences if agreement terms are broken. The District is in agreement with this recommendation and will implement it as soon as possible. The above response to the Grand Jury recommendations was adopted at a regular meeting of the Board of Trustees on August 24, 1007. Nancy Watton, Superintendent