Minors on Campus

Policy 6.55 · Adopted 2012 · Last revised 2024 · Responsible office: Dean of Students · Next review 2029

The College regularly hosts persons under 18: College Credit Plus students, Career Exploration Day visitors (1,240 in 2024–25), summer youth camp participants, 4-H members using barn facilities, scout troops using the range, and the children of students and employees.

General

• A minor on campus for a College program is supervised at all times by a designated adult. A minor is not left alone with a single employee, volunteer, or student worker. Instruction and supervision occur in observable spaces or with a second adult present.
• Background checks. Employees, students, and volunteers with direct, unsupervised responsibility for minors complete a BCI and FBI criminal records check before assignment, renewed every four years. This includes camp staff, mounted patrol program instructors working with 4-H, range supervisors, and student performers assigned to youth events.
• Supervision ratios: 1:8 for ages 6–11; 1:12 for ages 12–17; 1:6 in any shop, barn, laboratory, or range setting regardless of age.
• Mandatory reporting. All College employees report suspected child abuse or neglect to Tolliver County Children Services and to law enforcement, directly and immediately. Reporting is not routed through a supervisor, the Dean of Students, or any College office first, and no College policy may be read to require it. Employees complete mandatory reporter training on hire and every two years.

Areas closed to minors

Regardless of accompaniment or waiver: the Wing E preparation laboratory; the Reptile House beyond the viewing window; Wing F, including the Mock Structure; the Sub-Level Range except for supervised program participants aged 12 and over with written parental consent; the Cosmetology clinic chemical service area; active welding bays; the Cemetery Practicum Ground during instruction; and the Fermentation Cellar.

College Credit Plus students enrolled in a course are participants in that course, not visitors, and are subject to the same requirements as any student — including the age-restricted programs identified below.

Programs a minor may not enroll in

Cannabis Cultivation and Retail Operations (state licensure requires 21); Casino Table Operations (21); Plasma and Blood Center Operations (donor-facility site policy, 18); Disinterment and Cemetery Relocation (18); Funeral Service Technology (18, apprenticeship requirement); Private Investigation (18). Advising discusses these at the point of College Credit Plus enrollment rather than at the point of graduation.

Children of students and employees

Children may not be brought to class, to shop or barn areas, or to the workplace as an alternative to childcare. The College does not operate childcare and maintains a county referral list. A brief, supervised presence in the Commons or a public corridor is not what this provision addresses.