This legislation that was signed by the governor is exciting news to the background screening industry. In past, the school districts have only been able to run their background checks through the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Read more…

While it is possible for FBI checks to be inaccurate, its highly unlikely in this case. The common inaccuracies with the FBI check is that it does not have a comprehensive coverage with respect to jurisdictions. The FBI gets its data from law enforcement agencies and state criminal record repositories. These sources only represent about 65% of all records available. The records are often just arrests and do not contain updates on the court case. If the case has been dismissed it is possible they have the right person but the wrong information. The FBI uses a fingerprint to match identity so as for a case of mistaken identity its unlikely in this case.

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I believe that North Dakota is behind the times by not requiring background checks for their employees. While it is not mandatory, I certainly hope that each school district across the state will conduct their due diligence and use background checks as a part of the hiring process.
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The United States isn’t the only country to have problem teachers employed by public schools. It seems the Australian public school system has hired more than 100 employees with serious offenses to various positions. The school system did background checks and found that 268 potential hires had serious offenses. Of the 268 about half were hired and two of those employees had offenses that precluded them from working around children. You can find the article here.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, schools and schoolyards are enticing places for sexual predators. The combination of a large, moving target population and unique security issues gives sexual offenders the feeling of easy pickings. Today, keeping children safe from sexual predators is one of the top concerns of school officials, students, and parents. Read more…

Over the weekend I found a great School Violence Resource.
They have some great resources for parents, students and even the schools themselves. If you are concerned about school safety please head on over and take a look. They even have a forum where you can disccuss the Virginia Tech Shootings as well as general school safety issues.

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of screening our teachers. What about the rest of the staff that we have around our children? A story out of Columbus, Ohio called Criminals In Schools Is very disturbing. Read more…

Even Online Tutors Need to be Screened, Says Dept. of Ed.

City public schools allow students at high-poverty schools to take advantage of online tutoring, which the Department of Education contracts out to a number of firms. But now it turns out that one of the firms may be off the list of tutoring firms because it used tutors in India. Read more…

Pedophile teachers can no longer hide dirty little secrets

AKRON — A local educator’s hidden history has helped lawmakers approve new legislation to prevent school districts from keeping quiet. Read more…

Stricter Background Checks For School Employees Sought
A new proposal would require federal criminal-background checks for prospective public and private school employees in Pennsylvania.