These days, the pool of teacher applicants is no longer dominated by fresh-faced 22-year-olds coming out of the state university. Rather, it includes many adults embarking on a new career a decade or more after they first entered the work force, during which time they may have lived in any number of states.
Last year alone, Texas issued 7,000 teaching certificates to out-of- state applicants. But if a prospective instructor had spent the past 15 years working in Ohio, a Texas state background check wouldn't likely turn up anything, which doesn't mean there were no problems. "We would like to expand background checks to encompass a national criminal history check," says William Franz, director of professional discipline at the state Board of Educator Certification.
A growing number of state and local governments have recently enacted or are now trying to pass laws mandating criminal background checks that extend beyond the state patrol or state investigative unit. This latest wave of protective measures is broadening to include fingerprinting, so that national criminal background checks can be undertaken, and being applied to more and more professional and volunteer positions.
Opponents of more thorough checks believe that privacy and cost issues may drive away much-needed applicants for tough-to-fill jobs. But supporters argue that the cost of not doing background checks may be much greater.
Some of society's most vulnerable members are in the care of workers who may not have been screened thoroughly before being hired. Employees convicted or accused of abuse or assault or worse have been found to be driving school buses, caring for young children, teaching in public schools and looking after the frail elderly.
Although occasional horror stories in the media spotlight the issue, most of the recent activity on this front is being driven by a combination of demographics and economics. With school enrollments climbing and states requiring welfare recipients to enter the work force, both teachers and child care providers are in great demand. Likewise, there are more infirm seniors who need to be looked after than ever. At the same time, the tight job market in a good economy has led to hiring difficulties in many professions, especially for low-paying jobs. Desperate employers are taking on people who might not have been their first or third or even fifth choice under other circumstances, and they don't always know what they're getting.
According to 1998 statistics, the latest available from the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, 49 states required applicants for teaching positions to disclose whether they'd had a prior conviction. However, only 18 states required both state and federal criminal background checks that would unearth convictions if the applicant didn't admit to them. Some states required either a state or a federal background check, but 13 states required no checks at all.
That has started to change, however. "The trend is to add more levels of protection," says Roy Einreinhofer, executive director of the association. States are reviewing or setting policies not just on teachers but on anyone who has anything at all to do with children, whether they are janitors, cafeteria workers, bus drivers or school principals. "They're looking at all the people who are exposed to hundreds or thousands of kids every day," Einreinhofer says. "We need to find if convicted felons are tucked away in our school systems."
Complaints against Texas teachers, for example, rose 28 percent in fiscal year 2000 from the year before. And the percentage of complaints that resulted in disciplinary action against educators nearly quadrupled in that same time period. If Texas moves forward with a national background check requirement, it would mean that for the first time, Texas teachers would be fingerprinted so an FBI background check could be done. "We feel it's a necessary step," says Franz.
Lawmakers are also concerned with getting more stringent and far- reaching rules in place for day care providers. As with teachers, most states have laws and regulations that make child care providers subject to in-state checks only, and there are many exemptions.
Recently, Kay Hollestelle, executive director of the Children's Foundation, a national child advocacy organization that does licensing studies of child care, has noticed a change in the databases being used for checks and the types of crimes looked at. For instance, many employers used to do a child abuse clearance through state child protective services departments. Now, instead of looking only for people who had abused children in the past, some states are expanding their inquiries to include any kind of abuse of any family member. "The trend is there, but it takes time," Hollestelle says. "States take as many as three to five years to get regulations through the process."
Last year, New York passed a law tightening requirements for day care workers. It added a fingerprint requirement for those seeking employment in a day care center or for in-home providers getting a license issued or renewed. Previously, prospective employees self- reported their own criminal backgrounds. Now, the law requires that state inspectors do background checks.
The new policy, however, still doesn't cover unlicensed child care providers. Those are people--typically relatives, neighbors or friends--who take care of fewer than three children in their homes. Officials in Onondaga County, New York, which helps fund such care for low-income parents, wondered whether those caregivers were safer as a group than any other.
Worried about potential liability, the county decided to take a look at subsidized providers who basically only had to fill out forms stating they'd never been convicted of certain crimes. "We felt we needed to look and make sure the information was accurate," says David Sutkowy, commissioner of the Onondaga County Department of Social Services.
Sutkowy didn't make the decision easily. He realized that the only people under inspection for placing their children with friends or relatives would be those requiring financial aid for their child care. The department ultimately selected 50 of the 800 cases in the county. A newly hired investigator ended up looking at 38 of those homes still taking in children and discovered problems in most of them. Some involved the lack of smoke detectors, exits and other safety standards. When the county obtained permission to check these providers' criminal histories, inspectors discovered that many did not jibe with what had been self-reported. "We found only a handful of situations where there were no problems," Sutkowy says. "It was surprising, disheartening."
Once he got the audit report, Sutkowy felt it forced his hand. Onondaga County got a waiver from the state allowing inspectors to check all homes in the program and conduct criminal background checks without the providers' permission. In early February, the county requested all child care providers to mail in a notarized form giving permission for the sheriff to inspect their arrest records. Those with arrests in their background must prove they were acquitted or explain why they should be allowed to remain as day care providers. At least 10 child care providers have been shut down and investigations are continuing.
States know they also have to do more to protect the elderly, and several are heading in that direction. Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has asked lawmakers to mandate criminal background checks for all nursing home and assisted living employees who have contact with seniors. Governor George Pataki in New York has proposed major improvements in nursing homes, including requiring criminal background checks on health care workers who are in direct contact with seniors, either in nursing homes or home care.
Janet Wells, director of public policy for the National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, recalls getting a call from an attorney about a client who died in a nursing home. The woman had been sexually assaulted by a male nursing assistant with a rape conviction in his background who was hired without a background check. Why was it so easy for him to get the job? "It was a body," Wells says. "The pay is so little, they'll hire anyone."
The issue of low pay also arises when it comes to deciding exactly who will cover the cost of mandatory background investigations. In Texas, teacher applicants already pay between $50 and $75 to be certified. A $42 background check, state Senator Carlos Truan believes, would pile on an additional financial burden. William Franz, however, thinks the cost is worth it. "I would hope it would not be a disincentive," he says. "I would hope $42 would, in the scheme of things, be pretty small. If I were in the classroom, I would like to know others in the classrooms next to me went through checks."
Not all school districts make teachers pay for their own background checks, though. Last year, one of the biggest flaps over the background checks for teachers in Maine was not over whether to do them or not, but over who would pay for them and whether current school employees would go through them, as opposed to just new hires. After a contentious legislative battle, the state decided it would pay for all school employees to be fingerprinted, including teachers, principals, bus drivers and cafeteria workers. The bill called for spending $1.5 million over two years to pay for the checks.
In Kentucky, under a law passed in the 2000 legislative session, even volunteers in the schools must undergo a background check and cannot assist in the classroom until they are approved. Implementing the law did not go smoothly this past school year. In September, the Administrative Office of the Courts received 22,000 requests for background checks on volunteers in schools and day care centers, up from 3,600 the previous year. At one point, there was a month-long backlog. Jefferson County believes that cost them school volunteers in the fall. Jefferson uses 30,000 volunteers, and many were unable to help out.
The Kentucky School Boards Association is hoping to get the law changed so that people could still volunteer in the schools while their records are being checked. In addition, the group argues, parents volunteering at their own child's school in a program involving their child shouldn't have to get a background check. Spokesman Brad Hughes points out, "If you volunteer with the child alone, it's called `parenting.'"
