Fingerprinting for Volunteers?

Corporate volunteers in the schools are, in effect, strangers. Should they be fingerprinted and checked as is required of others who have contact with children?

That was the gist of a concern raised at Tuesday’s work-and-study session by school board member Lisa Logan-Leach Tuesday. She said a previous Human Resources director in the district said outside volunteers should be fingerprinted.

Interim Schools Superintendent Peter Carter said “without casting aspersions” on the former director, there were some areas where fingerprints were required, but it was not clear exactly where. Carter said the district will be contacting the state Department of Education’s Criminal History Review Unit to see whether corporate volunteers “who will be under the eyes of certificated, fingerprinted employees” would have to be fingerprinted.

If so, the process would take time and the district might not be able to enjoy their services, he said.

The board will vote next Tuesday on a resolution to accept the offer of Merrill, Lynch to provide volunteers for the “Investing Pays Off Program.” It is described as the company’s “flagship program to help young people in under-served communities become financially literate, business savvy and economically competitive.” The business meeting is 7 p.m. Sept. 18 in the Plainfield High School Library, 950 park Ave.

Carter said the program is for the 4th and 5th grades, with high school students helping to present it.

As described on the Jump Start Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy web site, lessons for young people include understanding how to balance a checkbook and other basic survival skills of “earning, spending, saving and investing.”

--Bernice Paglia