EmployeeScreenIQ

The State of Texas is amid a broad effort to conduct criminal background checks, including fingerprints, on teachers, substitutes and classroom aides.

Senate Bill 9, passed in 2007, required all new hires of non-certified employees to undergo fingerprint checks beginning in January 2008. That law further required all certified educators, substitute teachers and classroom aides to have background checks before 2011, regardless of when they were hired.

Texas has been administering fingerprint-based checks for all newly-certified teachers since 2003. Those teachers will not be required by the state to undergo fingerprint checks again, but school districts can require another check.

According to an article by the Star-Telegram, about 12,500 of the 164,000 checks already administered, or about 8 percent, have come back with some sort of hit, which could be an arrest or conviction. Of those results, more than 1,000, or about 9 percent, were for felony crimes.

Doug Phillips, director of investigations and fingerprinting for the Texas Education Agency, said the agency has opened 168 investigations since January of last year. The agency does not keep data on how many cases result in the loss of teaching certification.

"We don't know how many people we've convinced not to teach in Texas or to leave Texas because they've had that criminal history and they don't want to be found," Phillips said in the article. "There's no doubt people left the state or they left teaching because they knew they were going to get nailed."

Many schools in Tarrant County are now getting their turn to administer criminal checks. Grapevine-Colleyville, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw and Crowley were among the districts expected to start administering the checks this summer. The state is sending e-mails to affected employees alerting them they have 80 days to have the checks done.

This upcoming fall, Fort Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Arlington, Keller and Birdville school districts will have their own teachers undergo background checks as well.

Labels: Criminal background checks