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Background Check

Background Checks For The Education Industry

October 27, 2008 By Chris Miller

One of tragic ironies of the education industry is that it often fails to properly screen teachers. For example, a study conducted in 2007 found that most Illinois teachers who were hired prior to 2004 were exempt from FBI background checks. These educators have a dangerous level of exposure to children. Consider that many of them could easily hide a criminal past.

Chilling Examples

Newspapers are filled with hundreds of cases in which educators are hired, but are unsuitable to have exposure to children. For example, a high school teacher named Jaime Katheryn Steen was recently jailed for distributing pornographic pictures to her students. George Tolbert, convicted of sexually abusing 2 children, served 4 years in jail, only to earn his teaching credentials and teach for 10 years. Chassappasi Rain, convicted of shooting 2 people in 1978, earned his teaching certificate in 1990 and found a teaching job in the Chicago Public School System.

Comprehensive background checks should have been performed on each of these people prior to hiring them as educators. By failing to screen them properly and allowing them into the classroom, school administrators are gambling with the safety of the students in their care.

Pre-Employment Screening For Educators

As the number of criminal cases involving teachers continues to escalate, state governments are starting to require pre-employment background checks. The problem is that the scope of these background checks is usually inadequate. They’re often limited to running an applicant’s name through an FBI database and doing a child abuse registry search. Not only is this approach plagued with problems (i.e. misspelled names, out of date profiles, etc.), but they often fail to uncover past criminal convictions.

School administrators need to implement more thorough pre-employment screening protocols. Even if funding seems to be a obstacle, it’s important to realize that properly screening teachers and conducting wide-ranging criminal background checks is relatively inexpensive. In fact, it can usually be done for less than what that teacher will earn during their first day on the job.

Limiting Risk And Protecting Students

Doing the bare minimum when screening educators is no longer a viable option. There is simply too much risk to the safety of the students. Allowing convicted felons to gain all-day access to children is a recipe for disaster. In fact, the education industry has been buffeted by high-profile incidents for years. It’s time for school administrators to take control by conducting extensive background checks on all personnel.

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The Importance of Employee Screening for Nonprofits

Do You Have a Sex Offender Working For You?

Top 4 Things You Need To Know About Employee Screening

Six Background Screening Mistakes To Avoid

Photo Credits: krispdk, aprilzosia

Filed Under: 2008 Best Employee Screening Posts, 2009 Best Employee Screening Posts, 2011 Best Employee Screening Posts, Background Checks, Employee Screening Tips, employment background checks, Job Search, Nonprofits, Sex Offenders Tagged With: Background Check, Background Checks, Criminal Background Checks, Education Background Checks, Education Screening, Employee Screening, Pre-Employment Screening, Sex Offender

3 Ways To Improve Your Employee Screening Program

August 5, 2008 By Chris Miller

Millions of small and medium-sized companies lack the time and resources to properly screen potential new hires. It’s understandable. Unlike large corporations with thousands of employees, smaller companies are often stretched. Human resources executives are responsible for a wide range of duties. Unfortunately, that can lead to small cracks in their employee screening program. Here are 3 ways you can kickstart your company’s employee screening to boost workplace productivity and help ensure the safety of your staff.

Tip #1: Evaluate Your Requirements

You can often disqualify many job candidates simply by having a concrete understanding of a position’s requirements and communicating them to applicants. Not only will doing so help guarantee you’ll find the right employee; it will weed out many candidates who may become potential problems in the workplace.

Tip #2: Invest Resources Into Preliminary Screening

A quick in-person interview is not enough to know whether a prospective employee has a problematic past. Plan to invest company resources to conduct a few basic screening practices. Your time may be limited, but hiring mistakes can be extremely costly. Especially for smaller businesses.

Tip #3: Execute An Exhaustive Background Check

One of the most important things you can do to improve your company’s employee screening program is to conduct an exhaustive background check. That includes validating past employment, conducting a drug test, checking credit history and driving record as well as searching for a criminal history (fraud, abuse, sexual misconduct, etc.).

An Investment In Employee Screening

Though your company’s resources may be limited, a small investment in improving your employee screening system can produce long-lasting benefits. It will help boost the overall productivity of your workforce and help you avoid making hiring mistakes that can lead to costly disasters. To insulate your business from problematic employees, it’s more important than ever to screen the people you hire.

Subscribe to the fyiscreening blog for tips on employee screening to make your job easier, prevent theft and loss, and create a safer workplace.

Filed Under: 2010 Best Employee Screening Posts, Background Checks, Employee Screening Tips Tagged With: Background Check, Employee Screening

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