Those who want to regularly volunteer at Indianapolis Public Schools must pay for their own background check starting this school year, a change that’s frustrated many parents.
In recent years, federal pandemic relief funding covered the cost of background checks. And before that, the funding came from individual schools’ budgets, said IPS Chief Human Resources Officer Christina Aden Hamer. But with relief dollars from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund running out, the district has opted to shift that expense — which ranges from $15.95 to $19.90 — to volunteers.
“I think that there’s got to be some other way to meet the goal of keeping our students safe that doesn’t place such a burden and that isn’t so inequitable,” said Melissa Ranck, a parent at Rousseau McClellan School 91…