My kid's California public school is telling parents they need to get a "Live Scan" fingerprint screening to participate in school events.
Has anyone looked into this? Is it even legal? What are the privacy implications?
Ask HN: Mandatory gov't fingerprinting for parents in California?
1–5 of 5 posts
Re: Ask HN: Mandatory gov't fingerprinting for parents in California?
#2This is normal for interacting with small children without being directly supervised by a licensed professional. You'll also need to get a TB test and, depending on how much time you're spending with the kids, may need to take some anti-sex-abuse training. AB506 is the relevant bill; you can read it at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... .
Re: Ask HN: Mandatory gov't fingerprinting for parents in California?
#3Apparently the LA school system has been doing this since 2018 for volunteers. What do you mean by "participate"? Volunteer, or attend?
Your kid goes to a CA school, sure, but it's not a "California" school, it's a Sacramento school district or San Diego or LA or other locality's school district. Many other school districts don't have this requirement, or didn't when LA instituted theirs.
Re: Ask HN: Mandatory gov't fingerprinting for parents in California?
#4Having gone through this myself recently, it should not apply to parents attending events, if they are just a passive attendee, such as being in an audience for a school play. It does apply to any administrator, employee, or regular volunteer. Iirc the regular volunteer part has a number of hours of total volunteerism over the course of a year that is relatively low so if you are helping out with any frequency then yes, this probably applies.
Re: Ask HN: Mandatory gov't fingerprinting for parents in California?
#5As others are saying, this isn't fingerprinting for parents, or for attending school events -- it's for applicants to volunteer at the school.