Quickly Enacted Law Too Restrictive

[stevevan]

Since this is the Open Discussion, I wanted to vent a little with my fellow family members.

 

Here in Florida, there was a recent law enacted called the “Jessica Lunsford Act” that was designed to regulate and track sexual predators. However, caught up in this act are school employees and anyone who has a contract in dealing with a school. This includes sports officials. We were required to submit to a “level 2” background screening (fingerprint background check) in order to officiate any sport. The cost, in my case, was $61. A portion of this cost was reimbursed to us by the state High School Athletics Association. We were told that this background screening would be done in our home county and would be good state wide.

 

Now it seems that the State Department of Education has gotten involved and has determined that the background screening would be good for only one year in one county. As my sport (soccer) officiates games within a 4-county region, this could cost each referee $244. We have also been told that next year, the cost would be $155 PER COUNTY and be good for 5 years (or $124 per county per year). The way things stand right now, our local soccer season is in serious jeopardy of even being played at all due to lack of officials.

 

While I understand and whole-heartedly agree with the concept of this Law, I have to admit it was planned and voted on very quickly. (For those who don’t know, it is based on the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a little girl last year in the Tampa area.) If it puts our relatively small sport of soccer in trouble, I’d hate to think of the implications on a major sport such as Football, which is KING in the United States.

 

I have already wrote the governor and other elected officials, plus sent letters to the local media. I'm hoping that will be enough to get this issue resolved to something that resembles common sense.

 

****

 

Ok...off soapbox. Thanks family! I feel better already!

[Madmanmcp]

Hi Steve, I am afraid this practice is affecting more sports than just High School sports. I was on the Board for our Community Sports Programs and was also the Player Agent for our Little League Baseball program. The rules and requirements for criminal backgrounds checks has been the "hot" item for the last several years.

 

We started out with just a signature on a form giving us permission to perform the check on individuals. It was tough a couple years ago to get one of these "checks" performed because there were not organizations or departments that could handle the workload involved. As a non-profit organization we also could not afford to pay for each individual...so we didn't require it to be done. We also decided that since all our parents were volunteers it was not right that we make them pay for the background check.

 

What a mess.

 

Both my kids are now out of the programs (age) and I am also out, thank goodness. I loved every minute of my volunteer time and hated to drop out when I did, I fully expected to stay involved long after my kids stopped playing. But the work involved got to be too much like "work" and it was not fun anymore. I imagine it will be the same across the US and its a shame. I wish there were an easy way around this mess but I am afraid there isn't.

 

BTW, my involvement is these organizations and doing their web sites is what brought me to TCH.

[Deverill]

It's even worse than that. The company I work for does narrated trolley tours of the island (historictours.com if you wanna see one) and often does tours or charters out for school classes to go from the school to the aquarium or whatever.

 

They are telling us that the trolley drivers must get cleared. I agree with the concept upon which the law is based, but what's a trolley driver on a public street in broad open daylight with 5 teachers onboard going to do for heaven's sake!

 

Good heart - bad brain is how I'd describe the law. I don't see it lasting in its current form for long.

[stevevan]

Quick update. I've been told that all school construction in Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale area) has been halted due to this law. There has been considerable letter writing by local (city/county) law makers to the state House and Governor this past week. There will be a newspaper article coming out on Monday plus the local TV station is doing a report on it. So we'll see what will happen in the coming days.

 

Rumor mill has it that there will be a special session of the State House called in the next week.