LAKELAND Fla. — Polk County Schools is no longer accepting new volunteer, or renewal volunteer applications.

The district says it needs time to revise its current background screening process in order to comply with new legislation that requires all school volunteers to pass a level two background check, which costs $97.

Some school Parent-Teacher Organizations are worried this could result in losing a lot of volunteers, depending on how the district ends up handling the additional fee.

Monica Sims is the type of mom who does it all — she works a full-time job from home, and volunteers at her kids’ schools.

“I would say we do a lot of the grunt work so that it frees up resources for the administration and the teachers,” she said.

Sims also heads the Parent Teacher Organization, too, but going into the spring semester, she is worried schools may lose a lot of their volunteer support because of background checks.

“The way I understand it, is going just from a local check to state, and national checks on volunteers within the schools,” she said.

Sims says the Level 2 background checks are an excellent safety measure, however, the cost associated with it is her concern. She paid $25 for her level 1 background check to volunteer in schools, and the new level 2 check costs $97.

“My hope is they don’t pass that cost along to the volunteers. I think that could end up causing some folks to rethink whether they do the volunteer work, so that cost associated may be too much for some folks to be able to do it,” she said.

The district posted to their website saying they temporarily suspended all volunteer applications to give them time to figure out how to pay for the background checks. The legislation requiring it passed in 2023, and Sims says she wishes the district would have figured this out sooner.

“If they appropriated money when they passed the bill, why wouldn’t that be appropriated towards the actual costs to offset that so the volunteers don’t have to do that, but they’re currently working on that, so we’re in a wait and see mode right now,” she said.

While she’s waiting to see, Sims says she’ll continue volunteering, and she hopes other parents do the same. 

The new legislation goes into effect on March 1. It does include $4.4 million in appropriations.