Parents Learning to Demand Better Teacher Background Checks

While another school year is coming to an end, the subject of teacher background checks is beginning to heat up along with the weather.

In Virginia, parents are demanding more thorough background checks on educators after it was revealed that a Loudoun County teacher was implicated in the 2002 death of a Texas student at a previous job. The teacher in question was hired at a Virginia High School in 2007 after passing a background check. Now parents are wondering how that background check missed such an obvious “red flag” warning.

The issue of teacher background checks recently came to public attention during congressional testimony about student deaths. The mother of the deceased 14-year-old – who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome – said a teacher sat on her foster son to quiet him down after he acted out in a special education classroom. When the teacher got off him, or soon after, the boy was dead.

According to a federal report, that teacher was found by police in Texas to have contributed to the death of the student, yet she somehow passed a background check to teach in Virginia.

Why?

Because even though the boy's death was ruled a homicide, a grand jury declined to indict the teacher, meaning she was never arrested or charged in the case. So when her fingerprints were run through a national database during her pre-employment background check, there was no record of the incident.

However, while she never faced criminal charges in connection with the boy's death, the teacher's name had been placed on a Texas registry of those who had abused children. Unfortunately, her name was removed when her teaching certificate expired in the state.

The teacher – who remains on paid leave while the circumstances of her hiring are investigated – is considered in good standing with the county and there have never been any reports of incidents involving her at the school in Virginia. But the Loudoun County application specifically asks prospective teachers if they have even been investigated on charges of child abuse or neglect. This teacher answered “no.”

Trusting prospective employees to answer background check questions honestly is not the best policy in any workplace, especially one that contains vulnerable children and impressionable teenagers like a school. Teacher background checks, while not infallible, are clearly the best option in maintaining a safe environment for students, parents, and even the educators themselves.

Pre-Employ.com – a leading provider of pre-employment screening nationwide – has provided professional background check services for a wide variety of industries, including education. For more information, please visit www.pre-employ.com, email info@pre-employ.com, or call 1-800-300-1821.

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