TDSB trustees to discuss motion calling for criminal checks on all volunteers
Posted April 7, 2014 2:18 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Toronto District School Board’s parental involvement advisory committee (PIAC) is worried that a motion to make criminal background checks mandatory for all school volunteers, including parents and grandparents, would hurt a plethora of valuable student activities.
The committee is concerned that if the motion passes it could spell the end of pizza lunches, field trips, and other activities that rely heavily on volunteers. School trustees will discuss the motion at a Wednesday meeting.
“We are all concerned that this is going to be a deterrent,” said the PIAC’s Jerako Biaje-Wendt. “Is this really something that’s necessary?”
PIAC co-chair John Trafananko told the Toronto Star that the committee is worried that activities will be cancelled under the burden of excessive screening, and called the proposed change a “draconian” measure that will kill parental involvement.
Police checks are already mandatory for volunteers “who have regular and ongoing contact with students,” the TDSB’s employee services protocol states. But the proposed changes would require screening for all volunteers even those who spend little time interacting with students.
But the board’s Shari Schwartz-Maltz said common sense would apply.
“If you’re selling a hot dog at a fund fair one time and it’s a community event, there’s lots of people around – no one is going to ask you for a criminal reference check,” she told CityNews.
Still, some parents expressed concern with the proposed change.
“I do feel that it’s a little bit of an invasion of privacy,” said parent Ariana Smith. “I’ve been on all the field trips for the last six years and now all of a sudden I’m going to be questioned?”
The call for more stringent TDSB screening was one of 103 recommendations in a coroner’s inquest into the death of five-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin.
Jeffrey died in 2002 of septic shock from malnutrition and bacterial pneumonia after enduring years of abuse by his grandparents, who were convicted in 2006 and are currently serving life sentences for second-degree murder.
The inquest recommended that the TDSB, “implement a policy or procedure to take effect in the 2014-2015 academic year requiring that a Vulnerable Sector Screening screening be completed for all volunteers.”
