Volunteer Clearance Information

ALL Volunteers Must Have a Current Background Clearance.

Types of Background Clearances:

While encouraging family and community participation, we must consider the safety of every child in the district. State law requires a current background check from volunteers before participating in any volunteer activity at any APS school. There are two categories of volunteers who receive differing levels of background check clearances and badging.  All clearances are valid for two years.  

To better support families with clearances, please refer to the Volunteer Policy FAQs and the Volunteer Clearance Decision-Making Guide.

Unsupervised Volunteer Clearance ($59): 

Must be initiated by the School Principal: 

Unsupervised Volunteers are those whose role requires unsupervised access to children, including unsupervised access to students during field trips, which will need to be initiated by the principal or the principal's designee by following the Principal Guidelines for approval for an Unsupervised Volunteer Clearance.  Volunteers are asked to contact the school’s volunteer coordinator, clerk, or principal to initiate this type of clearance.  Once the principal has their information to SFCS, potential volunteers will be contacted by APS to initiate payment and schedule a fingerprint appointment.  Please remind volunteers NOT to make an appointment to be fingerprinted until they have received e-mail instructions to do so.  Agency providers or other entities may contact SFCS.clearance@aps.edu for Unsupervised Volunteer clearance information.     

Supervised Volunteer Clearances ($12): 

Initiated or renewed on the APS website's Volunteer Programs page.

To begin or renew a Supervised Volunteer Clearance, visit the Volunteer with APS webpage. Supervised volunteers must remain in the line of sight of an APS staff member (who is not a Food & Nutrition employee) at all times.  Field trip volunteers who only have the supervised clearance will require line of site supervision by an APS staff member at all times – no exceptions. *Teachers or school trip sponsors may limit the number of supervised volunteers if they are not able to provide a constant line of site supervision.

Volunteer Clearance Support:  

All clearances are valid for two years from the date of issue and are good at any school in the district. 

• If volunteers have trouble logging in or processing their payment for the online Supervised Volunteer Clearance or wish to check on the status of their Supervised Volunteer Clearance (requiring them to be in the line of sight of an APS staff member who is not Food & Nutrition, at all times), please call Applicant Processing at 889-4820 or 884-6398 or email them at aprequest@aps.edu.

• If volunteers wish to check on the status of their Unsupervised Volunteer Clearance and your principal has already sent in approval for this type of clearance, please call 830-6240 or 884-6398.  Unsupervised Volunteers must wear their APS-issued badge at all times while they are volunteering.

• All volunteers, regardless of clearance, MUST sign in at the front desk each time they visit a school site.  

Access a List of Your School's Supervised Volunteers

School clerks and/or admins can gain WinOcular access to view supervised volunteer data and run supervised volunteer reports.  If you would like your office staff to have this ability, please complete the WinOcular Access Request for Volunteers Only.  The employee and the site supervisor must sign the form to confirm they have read and agreed to the APS Technology Acceptable Use Policy.  Email the signed copy to hr@aps.edu.  After access has been granted, HR will provide an instruction guide to the user.  For questions, please contact Dorothy Chavez, Sr. Director of Employee Processes and HR Operations, via e-mail at Chavez_do@aps.edu or by calling 505-889-4898.