AOC-FAQ

Up until now, volunteers, teachers, staff and clerics were required to be fingerprinted every five years.

Beginning January 1, 2014, volunteers will not have to be fingerprinted, but they will have to do a background check with Selection.com from within their VIRTUS account.

Fingerprint Locations

Alternatively, you can schedule a mobile fingerprinting unit to come to you by contacting LeAnn Bick by e-mail at: Customer Support or by telephone at: 513-522-8764. We ask that you have a minimum of twelve (12) people in order to schedule the mobile unit for its location. (You can coordinate with other local parishes or schools in order to meet the minimum requirement.)

For a calendar of our mobile fingerprinting unit, go to the Calendar.

Volunteers or employees can pay for the on-line background check through personal credit / debit card / PayPal for payment at the time of service, or they can use a Fastrax Token- which will be pre-paid by the parish or school. (Fastrax™ Tokens will not cover the cost of fingerprinting.)

Parishes and schools will be able to purchase “Fastrax Tokens” to cover the cost of the on-line background checks for volunteers. (Fastrax™ Tokens will not cover the cost of fingerprinting.)

The pre-pay option will be available to every parish, school or location. This will protect the parish from potential abuse, and make it easier for their volunteers as well.

A parish or school can pre-purchase volunteer Fastrax Tokens from Selection.com. Please contact Stephanie Whalen at 513-522-8764 x3020 or by email.  Let her know how many tokens you want to purchase and she will issue you an invoice.

Payments can be made by check or ACH to:

Selection.com
attn: Stephanie Whalen
155 Tri-County Parkway, Suite 150
Cincinnati, OH 45246

Once you purchase a set of tokens (in any quantity), we’ll contact you and setup an on-line account where you can review which tokens have been used and which are still active.

The Fastrax Token will be a series of letters and numbers, much like a “coupon code” used in a shopping cart at an on-line retailer.

Once a parish or school has purchased Fastrax Tokens, the safe environment coordinator can email the tokens to volunteers or print them and hand them out.  Tokens can also be given out in batches to coaches, teachers, etc.

The Fastrax Tokens are each unique and cannot be re-used. Once someone uses a token, that token will not be active and cannot be re-used.

Parish or school representatives who purchase Fastrax Tokens will be given an account which will allow them to manage tokens, see which have been activated and which are still available. Unused tokens will be able to be re-assigned if they are not used by the volunteer to whom they were given.

A. Archdiocesan policy is that people will have their VIRTUS accounts suspended if they are three or more months behind in reading their monthly bulletins. This will become effective July 1, 2014. If your account is suspended, you will need to talk with your local Save Environment Coordinator to become unsuspended, provided you catch up on reading the monthly bulletins.

The reason web registration is required before attending a class is that there are too many people who start the class, but never register with VIRTUS.  Currently over 900 people have attended a class without registering.

Yes, volunteer records will be purged when people no longer volunteer. This will be done by the local Safe Environment Coordinator.

They will then get bulletins through VIRTUS at the email address registered with VIRTUS.

The local Safe Environment Coordinator will print out copies of the monthly bulletin for the people to read.

The local Safe Environment Coordinator will need to run a “Master Report” in VIRTUS in order to see who is “clear.”  At this time, though, you will not get email notices.

Volunteer coordinators will need to notify their volunteers that a background check is required.  Likewise, principals and pastors should notify their staff.  As of January 1, 2014, the background check will be required for anyone who has not had fingerprints or a background check done in the last 5 years.  Enforcement of this requirement and staying current with the VIRTUS bulletins will begin July 1, 2014.

Within VIRTUS, you can choose more than one location.  Changing or adding locations will not impact your requirements once you’ve completed a background check with SELECTION.COM.

Yes, beginning January 1, volunteers in Virtus will be able to click on a tab within Virtus (like the existing “tools” or “training” tabs).  From there, the volunteer will be able to initiate the background check.

Volunteers will need to either have done fingerprints in the last 5 years, OR do an on-line background check with SELECTION.COM.

If you fall under any one of these categories, you must have your background check done through fingerprinting in addition to the on-line background check.

•     Clerics residing / serving within the Archdiocese of Cincinnati – This includes priests, seminarians, deacons, and religious women.

•     Day Care Center employee (Child Daycare Center Owner, Licenses or Administrator Type A Daycare Home Owner.

•     Maintenance staff, administrative staff, cafeteria staff, before- school care, after-school care, or any other non-licensed school employee.

•     Non-paid student teacher or non-paid teacher doing pre-service field experience.

•     Paid lunchroom monitor or paid playground monitor.

•     Paid school bus or van driver.

•     Paid substitute teacher.

•     Paid teacher, including non-tax supported school teacher.

•     Paid teacher aide or paid classroom aide.

•     Pupil Activity Supervisor or coach – THIS APPLIES TO ALL PAID / VOLUNTEER HIGH SCHOOL COACHES.

All high school coaches, paid OR volunteer, will need to be fingerprinted in addition to the on-line background check.

No, only high school coaches, paid OR volunteer, will need to be fingerprinted in addition to the on-line background check. Grade school coaches will need to do the on-line background check.

Parish staff is not required by State law to be fingerprinted. However, under the Decree on Child Protection, if they have contact with children, they will need to have their fingerprints done every five years and the electronic background check done through SELECTION.COM.

Current volunteers will need either to have completed fingerprints in the last 5 years, or they will need to do an on-line background check.  This way, as we move forward, at any given point, all volunteers will have had a background check within the last 5 years.

In order that the Archdiocese can get the results of your fingerprints directly, we prefer you to use the SELECTiON.Com services.  Otherwise, we have no control over where the results are sent and how long it can take to get results back.

No. Active volunteers will not have to resubmit a background check every 5 years.  Volunteers will only have to pay to have their on-line background done once- if they stay active as a volunteer.

Ohio law requires that all individuals must have a baseline BCI and FBI criminal background check at the time they apply for their first Ohio educator license, certificate or permit, and those BCI and FBI background checks must be no older than one year (365 days) at the time they are used for initial licensure.

If an individual then resides continuously in Ohio, he or she does not need to update the BCI background check, but must obtain an updated FBI check once every five years.

If an individual lives outside Ohio at any time during the five years after obtaining a BCI check, then both background checks will need to be updated.

This applies to all individuals holding a state of Ohio educator license, certificate or permit, including a non-tax certificate (no expiration date), and a permanent certificate (no expiration date) and an 8-year professional certificate.

It is the responsibility of educators holding ODE licenses, certificates or permits, as well as their employers, to ensure that the law is followed with regard to obtaining required updated background checks within the five year timeframe prescribed by law, even if the expiration of a background check does not always coincide with the expiration of the license.

It is anticipated that, over time, the expiration of licenses and background checks would align, but in cases where they are not aligned, it is still the educator’s responsibility to meet the five year background check requirement in law, regardless of when the educator’s license is actually due to expire. Educators should not allow required criminal background checks to become expired (beyond five years) just because their license is not yet due for renewal.

If someone has lived outside of Ohio , we will be searching up to 3 county courthouses for criminal history.  In a small number of  counties around the country, the counties have decided to charge court fees as a revenue stream for their local government.  In the rare case that our searches take us to those counties, the volunteer or employee will be asked to cover the cost of those court fees in addition to the cost of the regular background check.

In order to get the results of the fingerprints, and avoid delays, we are asking everyone to do their fingerprints directly through Selection.com.

SELECTION.COM and VIRTUS

Yes, our site is encrypted.

We have:

• Redundant backup systems
• Backup generators
• VeriSign 128-bit to 2048-bit encryption
• Symantec encryption on all traffic
• 3 firewalls to our servers
• 2 levels of physical security on-site
• All our data is stored internally and is not stored off-site

Here at Selection.com, our only business is criminal background checks.  We do not engage in any business direct to consumers.  We do not sell, rent, trade, give, or in any other way allow other entities to access the information about the individuals for whom we do background checks.  Neither do we analyze, aggregate, extrapolate, or data-mine the information about the individuals for whom we do background checks.

Yes.

The first level of search that is performed is a verification of identity.  This will be based on the name, address, date of birth and social security number.  With this information, we will verify that all four pieces of information match, and we’ll be able to identify a complete history of residences.  Any social security number that does not match will be reviewed individually.  Maiden names and aliases will also be checked.  This level of security is much more secure than fingerprints which can be overcome with a fake I.D.