Grand Rapids schools will reconsider policy banning felons from volunteering in classrooms

[The Straight Story]

Grand Rapids schools will reconsider policy banning felons from volunteering in classrooms

GRAND RAPIDS -- Criminal background checks of school volunteers will be the first of at least four policies the Grand Rapids school board will review this year, beginning with a discussion at its Dec. 6 meeting.

The board's decision Monday to reconsider the policy was in response to a petition drive by Wendy Cross, a mother of four students at Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Academy, whose decade-old conviction on a bad checks charge prevented her from volunteering in her children's classrooms.

Grand Rapids Public Schools, like most in Kent County, bans volunteers with felony convictions, regardless of the nature of the crime or how long ago it happened because of safety and liability concerns.

"I'm very pleased that the board is listening to the parents and taking their concerns seriously," said Miriam Aukerman, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, who is backing the petition drive. "Individually reviewing volunteer applications would protect students, as well as the rights of parents to be involved at school."

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/11/grand_rapids_schools_will_reco.html