Polk County Schools: Most volunteers can avoid increase in cost for background checks
By Gary White
Polk County Schools Superintendent Frederick Heid offered some welcome news for school volunteers.
Not all volunteers will face an increase in application fees to nearly $100, as it appeared would be the case when Polk County Public Schools issued an announcement in December.
The district posted then that it would temporarily stop taking applications for new or renewing volunteers as it revised its policy. The district said it expected to reopen the process in March.
The application fee would rise from $25 to $97.25, the district said. The reason: Under a state law taking effect March 1, volunteers must undergo more intensive and costly background screenings.
The law, passed unanimously by the Florida Legislature in 2023, elevates the screening of volunteers from Level 1 to Level 2, which entails fingerprinting for criminal background checks.
During Tuesday’s School Board work session, Heid said that not all volunteers will have to undergo Level 2 screenings. That is required only for those whose activities involve contact with students out of sight of a district staff member, he said.
Other volunteers only need Level 1 screenings and will only have to pay a $25 application fee, Heid said.
Polk County Public Schools has subsidized the cost of the background checks since the adoption of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act in 2018. The district announced at the time that the fee would increase to $40 but then said it would cover the increased cost of screenings and keep the cost at $25 for volunteers.
All current volunteers will be designated with Level 1 status and may continue their service, the district said. Polk County Public Schools reopened the volunteer renewal and application process for volunteers needing a Level 1 screening on Monday.
Heid credited state Rep. Jennifer Canady, R-Lakeland, with helping to address the district’s concerns about the increased screening cost. Canady consulted with the Florida Department of Education and the staff of the Florida Legislature to determine exactly what the law requires.
“Rep. Canady, behind the scenes, worked very quickly with the department and, more importantly, with the legislative staff to see where they erred in the bill development,” Heid said. “And so there was some acknowledgement that, while well intended, it fell short and created some issues for many of us.”
Even for volunteers who previously met alone with a student, it should be easy to adjust their routines to avoid the need for a Level 2 screening, Heid said. He gave the example of a volunteer who enters a school and reads to a student.
Instead of having the volunteer and student meet alone in a hallway, they could meet in the back of a classroom or in a media center, within sight of a school employee, Heid said.
Schools will also have flexibility in using internal funds to cover part of the costs of background checks, Heid said. The cost of a Level 2 screening includes $30 to the state for the maintenance of a clearinghouse, which will cover five years of data security, Heid said.
The clearinghouse is not yet active, but the Polk County district is not waiting on the state to move forward with applications for volunteers, he said.
“We're encouraging schools to go ahead and get out ahead of this,” Heid said. “We already do Level 2 background checks for non-employees for athletics, so we have a mechanism in HR to track and monitor those individuals.”
The district has approximately 20,000 approved volunteers, of whom about 5,000 are active with schools, spokesperson Kyle Kennedy said in December.
No background check is required for school visitors, who must be monitored by a staff member at all times after signing in at the front office.
For more information or to apply as a volunteer, visit polkschoolsfl.com/getinvolved.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.