New rules worry some volunteers
RRPS schools run background check on entry to premises
Volunteers in Rio Rancho schools are seeing stricter security measures designed to improve safety, though some worry the changes are creating an unfriendly atmosphere.
Under the new rules, volunteers must check in at a kiosk in the school office that runs a mini-background check for sexual abuse convictions. The kiosk prints out a sticker with the volunteer’s name and photo, which is pulled from a driver’s license scan.
The volunteer must wear the sticker throughout their visit to the school. Office staff collect the stickers when volunteers leave and destroy them so no one can try to re-enter the school with an old credential.
Previously, the district required an initial background check, then issued a badge that was good for two years.
Another difference — the entire process is completed online, including a one-time payment of $19 to a vendor who conducts the initial in-depth background check.
The new systems were instituted this semester.
Marilyn Lake Dellangelo, head of Rio Rancho Public Schools Information Services, feels they have been a big improvement.
“We were not happy that somebody would have clearance for two years,” she said in a Journal interview. “Our first job is keeping
our kids safe.”
Lake Dellangelo sees other advantages, like knowing who is in the school during an emergency and tracking volunteer hours for recognitions.
The only cost to the district has been purchasing $200 printers for each school to process the stickers. The kiosks were already available in RRPS’ information technology department.
But former PTA president Gina Mitchell worries that the new system is burdensome.
The mother of two Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary students regularly volunteers at their school and spoke out about the kiosks at Monday’s RRPS Board of Education meeting.
“Every time I am asked to come in and prove that I haven’t sexually assaulted someone, sometimes within the last two hours because I have been up there twice in one day — I am starting to feel a little insulted,” she said. “There are a lot of barriers to parents coming in the schools. ... The constant checking on us just makes it worse.”
Mitchell said she felt the schools were very safe before the changes and achieving complete security is impossible.
To her, an incremental improvement isn’t worth pushing parents away.
Lake Dellangelo countered that student safety must come before volunteer convenience.
“I am a former principal and I like knowing that people in my building have current clearances,” she said. “I understand that there are people who want to be able to just walk in and out.”
Volunteer numbers have more than doubled since the new system was instituted, indicating that parents are not turned off, Lake Dellangelo said.
School districts around the state have taken different approaches to safety.
Albuquerque Public Schools uses a badge system rather than kiosks, according to district spokesman Rigo Chavez.