GILROY
– If a sex offender registered in any state other than
California applied to coach a Gilroy youth sports team last year,
chances are he or she would have been hired.
GILROY – If a sex offender registered in any state other than California applied to coach a Gilroy youth sports team last year, chances are he or she would have been hired.
But following the recent release of a Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury investigation, that’s changing.
Findings from the investigation completed earlier this month revealing major holes in sex offender screening policy throughout the county have left several Gilroy youth athletic organizations scrambling to improve their background checking techniques for sports coaches.
“I would say (the grand jury report) was a wake-up call,” said Linda Pacino, the Gilroy Unified School District’s assistant superintendent in charge of human resources. “We are doing everything we can to change our policy as quickly as possible.”
Responding to a number of external complaints, the Civil Grand Jury inquired into the hiring policies and procedures of a random selection of public schools and parks and recreation departments throughout the county – including the Morgan Hill Parks and Recreation Department. The Grand Jury found that the majority of county organizations rely solely on the state Department of Justice to complete background checks for coaches – meaning only criminal offenses committed in California would be revealed.
The Grand Jury’s recommendation is that both the state DOJ and the FBI’s national database be utilized to screen for sex offenders and other criminals when approving youth sports coaches in order to ensure that coaches with criminal offenses in different states don’t slip under through the system.
No Gilroy organizations were included in the inquiry, but many are reacting to the findings by changing their policies to better fit the Grand Jury’s model.
“We saw the report, and we have changed our policy… we started doing FBI checks three weeks ago,” said Cheryl Bolin, the City of Gilroy’s superintendent of recreation. The City of Gilroy recreation department operates youth basketball, soccer, softball and T-ball leagues which enroll almost 100 volunteer coaches per year. “Obviously, we want to do all we can to make sure we know the history of our coaches.”
Before being allowed to coach a city youth sports team, a person must first fill out an application and then go to the Sheriff’s station in San Martin to give a fingerprint. The Sheriff’s department then enters the prints into the DOJ database, and the results are returned within a week.
Now, under the city’s new policy, the prints will also be entered into the FBI database, delaying the results by up to one week, and raising the cost of the fingerprint from $44 to $68, which is paid by the applicant.
Once fingerprint results are returned, the city checks for any sex or child abuse crimes along with any other felonies, Bolin said. A coach’s account then remains “open” with the Sheriff, and the city will be notified of any future criminal charges.
“If someone got in trouble for smoking marijuana when they were 18 and they were honest about it on their application, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Bolin said. “But if there is any sex or child abuse charge, no way.”
Although the Grand Jury investigation focused on public school’s and city leagues, private youth sports leagues have come under some of the heaviest heat lately. On April 2, Quintin Lamarcas Daye, 44-year-old Gilroy resident who helped coach a private, Gilroy summer-league girls basketball team was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor. A Los Gatos soccer coach was also recently arrested for molestation of a minor after he was found in a parked car with a teenage member of his team.
Williamsburg, Pa. based-Little League International, the youth baseball league in which 900 5- to 15-year-old Gilroy boys and girls will participate in this year, just began conducting background checks on their coaches this year, according Gonzalo Laffal, president of Gilroy’s Little League board of directors.
Utilizing the Megan’s Law CD-ROM listing registered sex offenders that is available at local police stations, Laffal and other members of the board have screened the CDs for the more than 100 coaches who will participate in the league this year.
But the problem with using solely Megan’s Law for background checks is that the California Office of the Attorney General estimates that only 70 percent of sex offenders register for the CD which became state law in 1996, Laffal said.
“I’m not going to say that with 60 teams no one falls through the cracks,” Laffal said. “But we are looking at this as the first step. We are already working on ways to improve our checks next year.”
Kids playing sports in Gilroy’s public schools don’t have to rely on compliance with Megan’s Law to know their coaches aren’t registered sex offenders.
According to Pacino, the GUSD will soon begin FBI checks for all of its coaches and volunteers. All GUSD employees – which make up 80 percent of the district’s athletic coaches and staff – are required to be credential before being hired by the district, which means they have already undergone both FBI and DOJ background checks.
The change in GUSD policy will require the 20 percent of non-district employed coaches to enter both the FBI and DOJ background checks – currently they are only required to undergo DOJ checks, Pacino said.
“We will change are policy for the very reason that we have people coming in from out of state all the time and we want to be as safe as possible,” Pacino said. “Three or four years ago we didn’t even do the DOJ checks.”
Details: To review the Megan’s Law CD of local registered sex offenders, visit the Gilroy Police Department from 9 to 11 a.m. on Tuesdays or 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays. The CD is also available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Morgan Hill Police Department, 17605 Monterey Road. Megan’s Law records can be accessed by phone by calling (900) 448-3000; there is a 10 cent charge for two names.
