Seattle Board Procedures - Series 5000
Today the Board will be holding a Work Session on the Board policies numbered in the 5000s. The meeting is from 4-6 p.m. at headquarters. These policies cover human resource matters so you might think it's only personnel issues. It is but, of course, the SPS students and parents interact with teachers and staff so having awareness of these policies is important. For example, volunteer athletic coaches for the district have to have a fingerprint check whereas regular volunteers only have to give a name and birthdate for the Washington State Patrol's WATCH program. (When I was volunteering, everyone had to do a fingerprint check.) I don't know why the district has changed this policy; it is more expensive to do fingerprint checks than the name/birthdate check. Keep in mind that with both, they are checking for criminal history conviction records only for the state of Washington. Interestingly, the WA State Patrol website says: WASIS cann...