Does anyone else feel slightly disheartened at the fact that people volunteering their time must be scrutinized, making sure they haven't made a mistake in their past which may be seen as something endangering a childs life or wellbeing?
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All FIRST Team Mentors are required to complete a standardized internet-based background check process. Adults already screened by a public school system to work with youth are exempt from the application and screening process. A Team Mentor is defined as any adult, 18 or older, who works directly with youth on a FIRST Robotics Competition or FIRST LEGO League team. FIRST will issue separate guidance for teams located outside the United States.
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According to this, I as an 18 year old senior that will graduate 19, and vice-president of our team, need a backround check. Can I not take my friend aside during a robotics competition and talk to them privately if they are not an adult?
A friend of mine is 19, in high school, and thinking about being on the team. According to FIRSTS policy it would be necessary for him to pass the background check. I doubt he would. All personal feelings aside, he had a significant other for about a year and she was underage, this resulted in charges being pressed by her parents when they found out how old he was at the time (18). This friend of mine is now permenantly a registered sexual offender in the state of Michigan and it will follow him forever.
This policy of background screening for all adults involved has many implications, most of which were discussed earlier in the thread and I don't feel like reiterating what has already been said by others. This topic does need serious consideration on the part of everyone involved. From parents to mentors to students, this policy needs to be weighed, for all the costs, not just monetary, and the benefits.
A former Prime Minister of England said that you cannot outlaw childhood, no matter what children are going to die. This was in response to many rediculous pieces of legislation that were turning up in England and in the USA. 'Oh no, someone choked to death because of the string in a hooded sweatshirt, lets ban them!' This philosophy can also be applied to crime. Take the sweatshirt strings, as a parallel to the backround checks, it would be similar to putting bright red flashing lights on the ends of the strings in a sweatshirt. You bring attention to them, look at them, but it doesn't really change the fact that in some rare incident, someone is going to get hurt. Humanity is not perfect, must we search everyones past for something publicly known which haunts them. Everyone has at least one skeleton in their closet, last I heard the messiah hasn't returned yet. Each citizen on this planet has things in their past which aren't good, it is a fact of life. If someone has a sufficiently bad past, who's right is it to tell them that they cannot make an attempt to do good to make up for their wrongs.
A slightly unnverved Will Gibbins