OCTOBER 14, 2010 - Principals will start using an electronic reporting form Monday to make daily reports to law enforcement about possible crimes on school property. The Board of Education was briefed on the form during its meeting last Tuesday.
Principals have been making daily reports to law enforcement, but the new electronic form will be used by all school levels. Elementary principals have previously been filling out a spreadsheet and emailing it to law enforcement, while principals in middle and high schools have been sending summaries of their NCWISE reports.
The new form will allow reports of misconduct by students and adults to be kept on the same form. It will also eliminate the possibility of privacy violations that arose when using NCWISE summaries.
Principals are immediately reporting allegations of serious crimes to law enforcement as they learn about them. Serious crimes refer to those in required to be reported by state law and N.C. State Board of Education policy. Those reports will then be documented on the electronic form. Principals will not investigate until cleared to do so by law enforcement.
"Special Circumstances" acts will be documented on the electronic form. These are nonviolent criminal acts, such as someone stealing someone's lunch money or belongings. The electronic reports will be emailed to law enforcement at the end of each day. The information on the reports is not part of any student's permanent record.
