Be a Volunteer in Our Schools

The Oxford Area School District encourages parents, guardians, retirees and residents to consider volunteering in our schools.  We have the following classifications of volunteers:

• Assistive Volunteer – works under the direction of a teacher and does not have unsupervised contact with students. Example: homeroom parent
• Independent Volunteer – provides direct services to students under the supervision of a teacher and may have unsupervised contact with students. Example: field trip chaperone
• Volunteer Coach/Sponsor – works under the supervision of a coach or activity sponsor and may have unsupervised contact with students. Example: volunteer football coach

Contact the principal of the school where you would like to volunteer to determine opportunities or contact the Oxford Educational Foundation.

Act 153 signed October 2014 established that volunteers must obtain the same clearances required for school employees if they have direct student contact, meaning that they have care, supervision, guidance or control and routine interaction with children; Classifications 2 and 3 above. This requirement is the same as the requirement in our volunteer policy, #4410.

Effective July 25, 2015, the cost for the Act 151 Child Abuse clearance and the Act 34 Pennsylvania Criminal background clearance will be waived for volunteers.  The fee waiver does not apply to the Federal Criminal Report-Act 114 (FBI Fingerprint). Volunteers will have to pay for this or they will be exempt if they have lived in Pennsylvania continuously for the past 10 years and fill our the Fingerprinting waiver form.

Governor Wolf signed Act 15 on July 1, 2015 which establishes that all employees and adult volunteers subject to background check clearances will be required to recertify all of those clearances every five (5) years. 

CLICK HERE to download the required clearances. Once you have all 4 clearances complete please turn them in to your child's school principal please include an email address where you can be reached in case you are missing something.  All clearances must be no more than 1 year old from the date of School Board approval.  If you have multiple children in the district just turn them in to one child's principal.  At that time your name will be submitted for approval by the Board of School Directors.  Once you are approved by the Board we will notify all of the schools and you will then be able to volunteer.  Please do your clearances early so you can be added for Board approval to volunteer at the School Board Meeting prior to the date of volunteering.

Thank you for your attention to this important information.  Please contact Christine Brown, Human Resources Assistant at 610-932-6601 or cbrown@oxfordasd.org for additional information.  Detailed information about our volunteer policy can be found under District Policy #4410 Volunteers.