[Kevin Kolodziej]

On the main page of the TIMS section of FIRST, you can find this:

Volunteer Screening Announcement
FIRST constantly strives to ensure the safety of thousands of youth that participate in our programs each year. Toward that end, FIRST is implementing new volunteer screening procedures in 2003.

All FIRST Adult Team Mentors will be required to complete a standardized internet-based background check process. (Teachers employed by a public school system which already conducts background checks on its employees will not need to be screened.) Registering an FRC Team includes consent to the background check and certifies permission to use resulting reports. Any information gathered during the screening process will be strictly confidential. By registering, teams also agree to cover the cost of the background check process (less than $10 per person.)

FIRST will contact registered teams via email in October to provide details on how to meet the screening requirements. We believe that these new measures will help provide parents of children who participate in FIRST programs a greater sense of security. The FIRST community can take comfort and pride in these new steps to further protect our youth.

Based on this, because our teams were registered and the majority of us never saw this, we really did not sign up for this. If we do not submit our SSN, therefore the check cannot be complete, does this mean that we have breached a contract with FIRST and there isn't a thing we can do about it...just not participate? If this is the case, as Dave Lavery mentioned, all of the federally employed mentors lose out, their teams lose out, and most of all, the kids lose out. Notice at the end it says "The FIRST community can take comfort and pride in these new steps to further protect our youth." To be honestly, that doesn't seem to be the attitude the FIRST community has taken...I take pride in the fact that FIRST is trying to become an even better organization, but I certainly do not feel comfortable with it.

This was to be my 6th year in FIRST...I really do not want to have to give up such a wonderful program over something like this.