Medford, Ore.– The Oregon Department of Education is implementing new legislation that gives school districts the option to fingerprint school volunteers.
The House passed a bill last year that allows schools to electronically fingerprint incoming volunteers who would have direct, unsupervised contact with children.
ODE sent out a memo Thursday to let school districts know they can partake in this optional service, but they have to expand their policies to include specific volunteer positions that are subject to fingerprint-based checks. ODE gave instructional guidance to schools for how to go through the process to be able to administer fingerprinting.
NBC5 News reached out to representatives at the Medford, Phoenix-Talent and Ashland School Districts. They said they have not heard too much about the fingerprint service yet, but each district added that they already conduct thorough criminal history background checks for all school volunteers.
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