For most western Pennsylvania school districts, it all started three years ago in Room 28 of tiny Ford Elementary School in Richmond, Calif. A fourth-grade girl’s father, who had volunteered as a field trip chaperone and classroom helper, stabbed Nancy Peer, a popular teacher and former Parent Teacher Association president. The best motive detectives could deduce: Paul Joe Gonzalez Jr. was irked his daughter was kept after class earlier in the week. The teacher lived. Gonzalez went to prison. Three years later, school districts here and across America are trying to determine the best way to protect students from the very people they want sitting beside them — their parents. The solution: Criminal and child abuse background checks. But like much else in American education, the solution has had mixed results. Screenings have kept some convicted child molesters, murderers and drug peddlers out of our schools, but local officials say they’ve also barred some parental volunteers adjudicated for minor crimes — including decades-old arrests for public intoxication, bounced checks and smoking marijuana. “There is no national consensus on the issue,” said National PTA spokeswoman Jenny Sopko. “It’s something we haven’t addressed. All of our directives come from the local level, the grassroots, and on this issue, they’re very divided.” Ohio and Kentucky now mandate screenings, but lawmakers in Harrisburg have yet to tackle the issue, leaving local districts to choose how and when to use background checks. In a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review survey of 67 western Pennsylvania school systems, charter programs and private academies, all but eight said they have taken up background screenings to weed out unwanted moms and dads. Those that don’t check out volunteers include some large and affluent school systems: Hampton Township, North Allegheny and Westmoreland County’s Franklin Regional. At Franklin Regional, several overnight chaperones are tested, but not other volunteers. At North Allegheny, some unpaid coaches undergo the screening, but not PTA members in the classrooms. Hampton Township officials insist they’ve structured classes and after-school programs so volunteers are never left alone with kids. Chartiers Valley relies on a questionnaire prepared by the PTA to remove parents, trusting what they write down. Most other districts have decided to trust instead what state troopers tell them. Twelve school systems say they turned down volunteers based on what the cops turned up. That added up to more than 50 parents across the region, officials estimated — a fraction of the more than 5,000 adults who volunteer every year, but a number, they say, that’s rising as younger parents seek to become more involved in the lives of their children. Some districts excuse former convicts. Others don’t. Often, it depends on the crime. A drunken-driving arrest two decades ago is overlooked. A molestation• Never. In between, there is a patchwork of policies. That has put districts in a bind: How do they balance the desire to involve parents in the lives of their children, while protecting other students from harm? Another issue: officials worry they face lawsuits if a parent with a record commits a crime while supervising children. Several districts have adopted “zero tolerance” policies for parents. At Fox Chapel and Beaver Area, parents who seek to volunteer better come in with clean records, or they won’t make the cut. At Fox Chapel, that includes even a few bounced checks 20 years ago or a college drunk driving collar. “If you show up on the background check, you can’t volunteer at Fox Chapel,” said school spokeswoman Bonnie Berzonski. “There are no exceptions.” Across the district boundary in Deer Lakes, however, there is more wiggle room. There, Superintendent Mark King had to make the tough decision to let two parents with long-ago arrests work with kids. He worries that some parents have “self-selected” themselves out of the volunteer pool for fear that officials and other parents would learn about their earlier run-ins with the law. “It’s always hard,” said King. “A misdemeanor that’s 30 years old, like shoplifting, isn’t something that would bar somebody from volunteering. But something more serious, or more recent, would.” The Trib’s survey found that crime crossed all geographic, class and racial boundaries. Poorer districts — such as the Pittsburgh Public Schools — proved just as likely as wealthier districts to get “hits” on the state police scans. Principals at Burrell and North Hills had to tell parents they knew about their convictions, just like their counterparts at Highlands and Freedom Area. Only three districts out of 67 declined to say whether adults with criminal records are volunteering there — Penn Hills, Duquesne and Wilkinsburg. Sixteen years ago, Pittsburgh City Schools officials had to face up to the fact that not all adult volunteers are there to help the children. A volunteer with a criminal record was discovered molesting children — and so the city schools have mandated background checks ever since. That means more than 1,500 new tests every year for adults who want to work with students. Since they began police screenings in 1986, however, officials say they haven’t had a problem with volunteers. They have more than 7,000 adult helpers in their database, about half of whom will visit classrooms this year. “Very, very few come back with records every year, but they’re there,” said Pat Crawford, who administers the Pittsburgh volunteer program. “First of all, we won’t accept anyone who has committed a crime over the last five years. They must be clean for that period. From there, we start judging. “Let’s say it was a drunk-driving conviction when they were in college 20 years ago. That’s different. Shoplifting 15 years ago, if the crime didn’t affect a child and it was a long time ago and it was never repeated, that would likely allow a parent to volunteer. “But it’s never an easy thing. We want to increase parental involvement, but we must balance that with the safety of the kids. I think we’ve been successful because we’ve been doing this longer than other districts.” Communities in Schools, a nonprofit organization, has been matching adult helpers with Pittsburgh kids since 1987. To Jean Olivas, an award-winning volunteer and director there, parents don’t mind the background checks. “No, it doesn’t matter. In fact, it means something because I think individuals should have that kind of clearance in this day and age. I’m glad that school districts are asking for the clearances. They want to have good role models in the schools.”

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