Certain School Volunteers Need BCI Checks Under New RI Law

East Providence school volunteers who “may have direct and unmonitored contact” with students on school property must now go through a criminal background check.

The BCI check for these volunteers became law in Rhode Island on May 24, said school solicitor Andrew Thomas.

He briefed the School Committee on the new law at its Tuesday night meeting in City Hall. 

The key word for the solicitor, he said, was “may.”

“That word causes me the most concern,” Thomas said. “It’s part of the ‘fudginess’ of the law.”

Disqualifying information primarily involves a criminal record, he said, such as for murder, manslaughter, sexual assaults, child assaults, committing a crime with a dangerous weapon, larcenies and felony drug offenses. 

But it will still be up to the school department to disqualify a volunteer, Thomas said. Just because a prospective volunteer has a criminal record would not automatically disqualify them.

The law states, in fact, that the school department “shall make a judgment regarding the qualifications and fitness” of a person to serve as a volunteer.

Thomas did not touch on volunteers for field trips or other off-site activities because the law specifically says that the direct and unmonitored contact would have to be on “school premises.”

The law also does not define what is meant by direct and unmonitored contact, he said after the school board meeting.

“Does that mean that the volunteer would have to be out of sight of a teacher or staff member?” he said.

Thomas said some of these questions are expected to be answered as schools begin living with the new law.