I get notes from school

[elfs]

I got this notice today:

This is to verify that the school volunteer shown below has cleared the Washington State Patrol check through WATCH (Washington Access to Criminal History).

Below was my name and Yamaraashi-chan's school and such. I have to wonder just how effective the whole process is. I remember reading that in some school districts in the UK the volunteering process is so onerous, and the media so hysterical, that any man willing to go through the whole thing and get cleared to volunteer is viewed with suspicion. After all, if a man is willing to go through that much trouble, he must have an ulterior motive, right?

Comments

[mouser.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, I was the youngest and SMALLEST person in my class (girls included). I didn't fight, I got beat up. Some times by kids in the next grade lower.

They used to call them "Block Parents" and there were signs in front of the houses.

Because they were there, I shed less blood as a child.


Granted, it's not precisely what you're talking about, but I've no problem with it.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

A check against criminal records is reuired by law, here in the UK, and the latest bit of law catches a lot of unexpected people. It's already making problems for volunteers doing such as sports coaching, not just at schools. How about staff at an ISP, because some of the people sending email--not account-holders--are children? If a court reads a particular combination of laws in the right way, a prosecution could mess up a lot of industries.

Companies providing servers for web-sites, for instance. It is the people who moderate a forum available to kids, or anyone with a root password? Both can identify a user and communicate directly with them.

It also applies to disabled people, whether they're sound of mind or not. Having my leg in plaster after a road accident makes me "vulnerable".

It's not that there aren't reasons. If I pay somebody to come in and clean my house, how do I know they won't walk out with pockets stuffed with my valuables? Is that a sensible reason? Well, these days British law seems to be written to provide intrusive mission-creep.

(What age do you classify as "children"? UK crime statistics group age into ten-year bands, and the 16-to-25 band overlaps the upper age limit for "children")

Me, I wonder sometimes whether giving parents some quasi-official status--the term "block parents" rings little alarm bells about European history--is a good idea. The teachers could be bad enough, and if they had picked the parents...