Columbia Public Schools is looking to make a few policy changes to comply with new state laws designed to protect students from predatory teachers.
http://liarcatchers.com/background_checks.html
Gov. Jay Nixon signed the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act into law in July. The law, which became effective in August, includes provisions such as requiring Missouri districts to have written policies about student-staff communications, requiring a district to immediately suspend employment for staff members under investigation by the Missouri Social Services Children’s Division and increasing requirements for background checks.
The Columbia Board of Education already approved a revised version of the district’s policy for student-staff relations, which specifically addresses appropriate electronic communication between staff and students, at its February meeting. Yesterday, the district’s policy committee looked to revise additional policies, including the requirements for background checks.
Right now, the district requires a criminal background check of all employees and volunteers. The new law expands that obligation and requires districts to also check potential employees on Missouri Case.net, which provides online case records from Missouri courts.
Some on the committee saw the addition of Case.net checks to be cumbersome and potentially problematic.
Case.net shows all charges against an individual even if there is no conviction yet or the case is resolved, Columbia Missouri National Education Association President Susan McClintic said.
Looking up common names also can pull up many unrelated results, said Paul Maguffee, a University of Missouri lawyer and volunteer member of the policy committee, adding that it would be time-consuming for staff to sift through all of that information.
“This is a classic example of someone at the legislature put in something because they knew about Case.net, and it just complicates our lives and doesn’t add another layer of protection,” Superintendent Chris Belcher said.
Adding a middle name or middle initial would help pare down search results, Maguffee said, but he said Case.net is not a “comprehensive way” to conduct such searches.
The committee also discussed minor amendments to its staff suspension policy to include a provision, required by law, that the district must immediately suspend any employee “about whom the Children’s Division conducts an investigation involving allegations of sexual misconduct with a student and reaches a finding of substantiated.”
Current practice typically is to put an employee on administrative leave with pay until any accusations have been thoroughly investigated, said Dana Clippard, assistant superintendent of human resources. Since Belcher’s time in the district, he said, there has never been a case found to be substantiated.
“It’s amazing the number of phone calls from parents … that are not substantiated,” Belcher said, estimating the district gets 10 to 15 of those calls each year.
The committee also discussed amending its policy against discrimination, harassment and retaliation to prohibit employers from “discriminating against employees or prospective employees based on genetic information,” to comply with the federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008.
The policies will go to the school board in April for a first read.
