Have you asked your school who THEY use? And there are different levels of checks, so you probably want to find out what level they prefer.
And are you certain your school won't perform the check for you - even if the PTO is paying the people. They have a vested interest in this, and many schools perform some level of background check even on volunteers.
We definitely cannot give the money to the school. But that's ok, we have all the legal niceties taken care of: insurance, taxes, unemployment, etc. We just need background checks. I know some parent groups do it, so I was hoping for an idea of how. Anyone?
As far as a PTO employing teaching assistants, that's a whole can of worms in and of itself. If your group is determined to that, can't you work it so the SCHOOL employing them and the PTO giving the school the money? (Taxes, workers comp, liability issues - I shudder to even think what's at risk.) And then the SCHOOL should conduct these checks as they would on anyone else.
There have been a couple instances in the past when our PTO paid for subs (to free up professional staff for a reason we supported). But we just provided the funds - the school hired them.
I think you need to find out what process the school uses and exactly mirror that process. This isn't something I'd randomly purchase off the internet.
My parent group is paying for teaching assistants to work in a few classes. We would like to run a basic background check -- prior arrests and convictions, I guess. It has been suggested that we hire a private investigator to run the checks for us. There are quite a few databases available on the internet, but it is hard for an neophyte to judge their quality. Any suggestions for how to manage this efficiently?
