Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankJ
Aside from the primary/secondary contact, there does not seem to be a path for background checks through First. Mere mentors are required to watch the video & fully fill out the profile. So how is your team doing background checks. Who is judging what details in the background check are an issue (IE what details disqualify a mentor)?
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Our school background checks & fingerprints all registered mentors.
Our team parents are their own organization (like a Booster club), and since we draw the mentor/parent line very firmly, they do not require a background check.
Non-mentor parents are also only in contact with students when a registered mentor is present. All of our team parents, siblings, etc are of course welcome to visit the build site, come to our competitions - but parent volunteers that help supervise our students in any way are always overseen by a registered mentor.
Short version: We build in a site off school property (storefront in town), and a parent volunteer staffs the front desk, signing students in and out. At least two registered mentors must also be in the building. We never leave any area of our build site unattended (without an adult present).
We do not allow a mentor one-on-one time with any size group of students, almost ever if we can help it, but certainly not until after they have passed their background check. If for some reason the school deems that they fail the check, then they're not invited to be a part of the team. (This, thankfully, has not happened for us.)
Post-background-check disqualifying a mentor from working with our team would result from violation of the team's behavior rules from our handbook, or inappropriate conduct with a student. This could happen at any point during the mentor's time on the team- if we determine they have broken any one of the more serious behavior rules/guidelines - bye bye.