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I normally do not put a disclaimer on my posts, but I will on this one. The views taken in this post are mine and mine alone. They do not represent the schools, students, or coaches I work with. I am also hesitant to post my views on this matter as they are not currently in keeping with the norm; however, I do believe that there are two sides to this topic that should be explored.
I hope this is not the case.
1. When I read the page that was linked to from this thread, it said that the team was to pay for the background checks. If this is the case, and the cost of the check is $10 each, that would cost one of the teams I work with $100 to get all of the mentors checked out.
2. How many professional engineers and machinists and others that donate their time to this program have the time to get the background check taken care of? How many of them will not have their "integrity" insulted by such a thing? How many of them will not return due to the background check?
3. The Dept. of Justice took 4 weeks to get my background check taken care of when I was a teacher several years ago. It was supposed to take 2-3 days. This meant that I was unable to go into the classroom until almost a month after school started. (Can you say "dead duck"? I knew you could.) In terms of FIRST, what happens to these mentors if there is a backlog in the system?
4. How many people really think that a background check will "protect the kids"? Perhaps it's just the pessimist in me, but I do not believe that it will. If I were to have the background check today, it would come back clean. Who is to say that my temper will not get the best of me one of these days due to all the stresses and cause me to lash out at one of the students physically? My background check would not have led anyone to suspect anything about me. The other coaches that I work with, on the other hand, see my temper on a regular basis and know how I generally deal with it. They are the ones that would sense any change that would necessitate some action to ensure the safety of the students.
I do believe that these background checks are performed more for sexual misconduct, but I also believe that most of the mentors within this program are smart enough to know how to "hide" their activities from the law. Therefore, the background check would show nothing on most people.
In my opinion, the best thing that can be done is to observe the students and their behavior. Not only will changes in the student's behavior, attitude, clothes, etc. signal something might have happened, but the students often spread news around like wildfire whether its intended to or not. How many teachers out there have heard something from the students long before you heard it from your administrators?
Yes, I understand the need for background checks on people who are performing service jobs, such as teachers. The difference between a teacher and the mentors is not the amount of time that is spent with the students, but rather the circumstances. The teacher is often the only adult working with a group of students (in an individual classroom), whereas the mentor is usually one of at least two adults working with the students at any given time.
Against background checks for the FIRST program,
indieFan
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