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It took 15 years for state officials to get a snapshot of the criminal backgrounds for the state’s 22,000 licensed public school teachers and more than 112,000 employees. Now they say clearing up that blurred picture is going to take a lot of time, and they hope it doesn’t end up creating a false sense of security.
Carol Lear, executive secretary for the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission, which deals with licensing, regulating and investigating teacher misconduct, said Utah Code 53A-3-410(4)(ii) required background checks of all licensed teachers beginning in 1994 and all school employees in 1999.
At that time, Lear said, the state chose to implement fingerprinting for background checks on every new license applicant. Existing teachers would only be required to have a background check done if a reasonable cause warranted it. Lear said it was generally agreed that a sudden requirement for everyone in public education to get a background check would break the system.
That sounds reasonable. The state wanted to take it slow, create a plan and implement it step by step. But at some point, it should have addressed the existing teachers and employees. The whole purpose of the law was to establish an informed education system and eliminate the hidden criminal pasts of the people working with our children. It never happened.
Finally, in April, a performance audit conducted by the Office of the Legislative Auditor General enlightened legislators that “the current system for detecting and identifying the criminal histories of individuals employed in public schools is flawed and ineffective.”
The audit found criminal convictions of teachers and employees from before and after they were hired. Apparently, the Department of Education was supposed to maintain a file of fingerprints that would notify the Utah Safety Office of Education of any new matters involving alleged sexual offense, felony or class A misdemeanor drug offenses against the person.
Lear said that’s what the Board of Education thought it was doing when it sent fingerprints to the Bureau of Criminal Identification for new licensees. It assumed the prints were kept and ran periodically, only to find out 15 years later that they never had been.
The audit also prompted legislators to strengthen the code by requiring individuals who were hired prior to 1994 to have background checks. Amazingly, it finally happened, and it didn’t break the system. The Board of Education gave the BCI its database of names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of all the licensed teachers in Utah. School districts turned over the same information for non-licensed employees.
The BCI took the database of names and cross-referenced them against any arrests in Utah as far back as the 1960s. Then, a few weeks ago, BCI turned over what basically amounts to a list of hits on criminal arrests, charges or convictions. There were more than 500 hits on licensed teachers and nearly 6,800 hits on employees.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean there are 500 people with serious problems who are licensed teachers and currently teaching,” Lear said. “What it means is that a lot of those people are people we’ve already known about and dealt with. There were people whose licenses were already suspended or revoked and some that were just flat out mistakes.”
Basically, it’s a whole lot of hoopla about nothing. So far, Utah school districts have reported firing only nine of their 112,000 employees, and the UPPAC is still trying to construct a plan on how to best handle the hits narrowed down to the 30 to 50 licensed individuals.
Because it was only a name check, Lear said its accuracy will have to be verified by a fingerprint check. She said the process will take months to sort out. Although it’s important to have the background information of public education employees, she said the public should remember it only shows what people are arrested and convicted for.
“Having that background check doesn’t guarantee that people will behave appropriately after they get into their profession,” Lear said. “It only says what people have done, but I guess no one speeds if they’ve never gotten a speeding ticket.”
Although she said people, community members and parents have the right to know, Lear said she hopes society doesn’t fall into a false sense of security with background checks. She said none of the notorious teacher or employees accused or convicted of sexual crimes against Utah students during the past two years had anything on their background checks.
None of this takes away from the ridiculous fact that it took the state 15 years to figure out it wasn’t following its own law. It might be a false sense of security for us to expect the state of Utah to provide our children with educators, aides, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and janitors who are free of accused or convicted criminal pasts. However, I’ll sleep a whole lot easier knowing it’s only their future actions we need to worry about. Their pasts can now be put to rest.
