ACSA is proud to report it has successfully petitioned to remove a provision of Community Based English Tutoring program regulations that would have required fingerprinting of all adult participants.
As proposed, the regulation would have required all adult CBET participants to be fingerprinted. Because most adult enrollees are parents or guardians of students to be tutored, school districts would have been required to fingerprint family members who would be tutoring at their home or at school.
ACSA had several concerns over this proposed requirement. First and foremost, it would have been cost prohibitive, and would likely have ended up costing more than the CBET program itself, thus leading to the elimination of many of these programs. In addition, many adult enrollees are foreign born and fearful of being fingerprinted, thus leading to fewer students benefiting from this successful tutoring program.
ACSA recognizes the importance of fingerprinting school employees and volunteers to ensure student safety. ACSA supports fingerprinting adult education teachers of CBET classes.
“ACSA recognizes the importance of school safety and supports fingerprinting of our staff and other regular volunteers that are on our school campuses,” wrote ACSA Legislative Advocate Laura Preston in a letter to the State Board of Education. “If this provision is allowed to pass, the fingerprinting cost will likely result in the elimination of CBET programs offered by school districts.”
The proposed CBET regulations could be adopted as is at the March State Board meeting, with new language introduced in May to correct the fingerprinting language. This language will be amended to reflect local school district policy regarding fingerprinting; districts that allow adult CBET participants to be fingerprinted will still be allowed to do so, but those that do not will not be required to fingerprint.