Volunteer+Clearances

As you may or may not be aware, PA Act 153 of 2014 went into effect January 1, 2015. This law require that every person responsible for the welfare of youth obtain and keep on file, comprehensive and regularly updated criminal and child abuse background checks. This law will have a direct impact on paid employees working with children as well as unpaid adult volunteers in Pennsylvania, including those involved in the Friend of Music. Going forward, this new PA law requires that volunteers working with children obtain the following background checks and clearances:
 * __ PA Act 153 – Requiring Comprehensive Criminal and Child Abuse Background Checks __**
 * 1) ** PA Child Abuse Clearance ** - [] (free for volunteers)
 * 2) ** PA State Police Criminal History Record Check ** - [] (free for volunteers)
 * 3) ** Fingerprint-based FBI Criminal History Record Check ** - [|www.pa.cogentid.com] ($27.50 fee)
 * Volunteers that have lived in PA consistently for the last ten years can be exempted from the FBI Criminal History Check by submitting in writing a disclaimer which can be found below.
 * If the excemption does not apply for you, Conneaut School District will reimburse parent volunteers for the cost of the FBI fingerprint check if you present a receipt to the Central Office.



** All adult volunteers with the Friends of Music over the age of 18 will be required to obtain their background checks and clearances before before they can be permitted to help. ** Please note the following exceptions:
 * Adults that are selling tickets, food or other items and will not have responsibility for the students will not need to obtain clearances. They will be required to work with a “supervisor” that has clearances when the students are present.
 * Young adults that will not be supervising students (i.e. they will not be left as the only responsible party) will NOT have to obtain clearance. Again they will always be acting under the supervision of a staff member or other volunteer with clearances when the students are present.
 * As of June 10th, 2015 the State of PA has waived the fee for the Child Abuse Clearance and the PA State Police Criminal Background Check. Volunteers may obtain these two clearances for free.

If you do not want to complete your clearances online, you can download, print and mail in the following forms:



If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Ann Flavin at theflavins@hotmail.com or 587-2506.