I had an email from a teacher called Sarah, this morning:
I hear you are interested in being a volunteer at York Street School - that's great!! We definitely need them. You seem to have a lot of experience that would be very suited to our school...
Whether you'd like to come into my classroom of small people (Gr.1/2) - you are MORE than welcome - or help out in the older grades, that's up to you. I'll put you in touch with the principal ... and she'll be able to find out who else might need volunteer support.
In the meantime, you do have to go through OCRI in order to be an eligible volunteer in the school... And if that gets sorted soon enough - or not - feel free to pop in and introduce yourself!
And she points me to this link. So it's OCRI again, the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation, the people who also give advice to entrepreneurs at City Hall, whom I mentioned last week. The on-line application to be a volunteer in a school requires that I first "solicit a personal reference" from "two adults who are in a position to comment on my character, temperament or work habits" and an up-to-date Police Record check entailing a visit to a police station, a $12 fee and a three week wait.
4 comments:
Bon chance, Madame Hobbs, once again, oh yes my old friends. No doubt you will be requesting the service of the established purveyors of wits and wisedom, Nuniwokingkac and Shellac, to supply the reference to your characteristics. We will compose a florid testament to your powers ansd, with little extra cost, forge for you an alibi for any occasion. We know where you live, and will never be out of sight for long!
A police check! What an incredible invasion of privacy. I would certainly be unwilling myself to go through that and suggest that you thank the school and say "no thanks".
A statement from the Solicitor General of Canada's office says: "Organizations that provide programs to children and other
vulnerable people must take reasonable measures to protect
them."
That's all well and good - the world is not an entirely innocent place whatever we'd like to think - but here's the worrying part: "...local police agencies compile information, in their
own databases, about every complaint they receive. Examples of
complaints include [...]allegations of offences where charges were not laid."
So even though I don't have a police record - yet! - if anyone decides I have done any damage to a person or property while I'm volunteering, however unintentionally or accidentally, I could get onto the criminal database.
The implication of this (guilty before proven innocent!) is so demeaning that it makes one want to stay in bed with the covers over one's head, doesn't it? But that posture doesn't get anybody anywhere. I still think I'll volunteer. It's a question of priorities. Would the children at this school benefit from my help more than I need to hold onto my dignity, or vice versa?
Anyway, watch out. They'll be expecting to check out ground school instructors next.
You only have to consider for a moment examples of unspeakably awful cases of disaster where such police checks were not successfully applied, to realise that they are, I'm afraid, necessary.
Mind you, that's not to say that I believe the police to be infallible.
Anyway, you're lucky it's so quick - poor old Carl (Elen's Carl) had to wait MONTHS for his police check to go through, before he could start business!!
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