The fallout from a California man’s visits to several Newton schools continues to affect policymaking within the Newton Community School District.
David LaVera visited Berg Middle School, Aurora Heights Elementary School and attended an out of school pool party between late May and early July. While at the schools, LaVera signed autographs as “Twilight” actor Kiowa Gordan and even gave a stunt performance at the BMS gym.
Since those appearances at the schools, LaVera has been charged by law enforcement officials with enticing a minor, attempting to entice a minor, two counts of invasion of privacy and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor among other charges.
The NCSD Board of Education has been proactive in researching its policies since his initial charges were announced on June 10. It updated its visitors policy at its first meeting in August after two months of research, and at Monday’s meeting, the board adopted a new school visitors procedures/volunteers in schools handbook.
“The issue here, is about the safety of other children who are not under your care or guardianship or are not your biological child … it’s a fine line,” said Superintendent Bob Callaghan.
“We want to make sure people have time to come in and visit their own child and have an open school, but at the same time we don’t want individuals to come in and interact with other children and have a difficult, tenuous situation that arises.”
The new handbook states that volunteers must fill-out a volunteer application form; sign a statement of confidentiality; consent to a Iowa Courts criminal history background check; have a clear record as it pertains to child abuse; be in compliance with sex offender law; and provide valid photo identification.
Volunteers are considered people who work inside of a classroom, help with a classroom celebration activity or chaperoning a trip. These people can include parents, grandparents, guardians, retirees or citizens who are committed to helping students, will exhibit regular attendance and be flexible in scheduling according to the district.
“If you are coming in to work with your own child, it would be similar to coming to have lunch with your own child and it would not require a background check because you are working with your own child,” said Callaghan in regard to how the policy would affect parents.
For example, if a parent came in to help with a Halloween party, they would be required to complete the volunteer application. However, if a parent was just coming to solely interact with their own child, they would go through the standard visitors procedure.
Rules of the handbook would not apply to school groups such as booster clubs or PTA and outside entities like boy or girl scouts and the Jasper County Conservation Office.
Volunteers would only be required to fill out the application once per school year. Callaghan estimated that it would take a week for the district’s central office to process the volunteer background check, and once a person has met the requirements, their information would be dispersed to all campuses.
In addition to approving changes to the volunteer handbook, the board approved the first readings of Board Policy 603.7, pertaining to outside resource people, and Board Policy 1003.5, pertaining to citizen assistance to school personnel.
The first portion of Board Policy 603.7 now reads, “the faculty member shall notify the building principal of an outside resource person well in advance of the visit. The principal may deny the request for an outside resource person.”
Another change to this draft of the policy, states that parents or guardians have to sign a permission slip to allow their children to attend presentations from an outside resource within the schools.
“My concern is protecting the parents from outside resources that they do not want their children to have access to,” Callaghan said.
Callaghan admitted this was a bit of change to how status quo has been in the district, but he feels this method would give parents more say in what they want their children to learn about from non-district personnel within the schools.
“I think it’s a good change, personally,” said board member Donna Cook.
Board member Robyn Friedman expressed her concerns about this proposed change in policy. She said it could have a negative influence on a students, especially at the elementary level, if they get pulled from class because their parent elected not to sign the form.
Friedman noted that permission slips get lost all the time and that some parents forget to check their child’s backpack when they get home. Board member Bill Perrenoud agreed with Friedman’s points.
Board President Andy Elbert suggested that at the elementary level, parents could just sign a single “blanket” form that would allow their child to attend all presentations from an outside resource.
Policy 1003.5 essentially reiterates the points of 603.7, but in the form of regulations.
The next readings for both policies is expected to take place at the Sept. 8 meeting.
Another safety update, unrelated to the policies, was brought up by District Business Manager Gayle Isaac.
Isaac proposed to the board, that sometime in the near future, it consider updating the intercom and cameras used at the main entrance of the district’s campuses. He said that they updated the system for Basics and Beyond Alternative School and it has proven to be more effective for identifying visitors than the current two-year-old system in place at the other campuses.
Contact Senior Staff Writer Ty Rushing at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6532 or at trushing@newtondailynews.com.