A local school district is leading a statewide effort to tighten criminal background checks on prospective employees.
Officials at the Ashburnham Westminster Regional School District have announced an addition to their current policy, which includes a check of the Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) and the Statewide Applicant Fingerprint Identification Services (SAFIS), which is a check of the federal database.
CORI checks, which are repeated every three years, let school officials know if a prospective or current employee has a criminal record in the court system, while the SAFIS check shows potential crimes outside of the state.
In November, the AWRSD School Committee amended their policy to include check of the Department Central Registry Record Request for Child Placement, Employment or Licensure database as a required component of the district’s staff background check policy. This measure will return supported findings or child abuse or neglect by the state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), according to Superintendent Dr. Todd Stewart.
Additional check closes loophole in background check system
Stewart said the additional check of the DCF records would close a loophole in the background check system by letting the district know about possible abuse or neglect cases that didn’t make it to criminal court.
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“The data is pretty compelling that a disproportionate number of crimes of abuse involving children – particularly crimes of sexual abuse – never end up going to trial,” he said. “And the reason for that is not for lack of evidence, but because parents – for varied and understandable reasons – make the decision that going through the criminal process would revictimize their child.”
Stewart added that supported DCF cases of child abuse or neglect would be far more disqualifying for prospective employees than some of the crimes that might turn up in a routine CORI background check.
“If someone is 50 years old and they had a speeding ticket or some sort of issue in college when they were 19, that may or may not be disqualifying for the job here,” he said. “But the idea that the abuse of children, once we learn that a disproportionate number of times there is no criminal charge, that’s the loophole because it wouldn’t show up in a CORI or fingerprint check.”
A check of the DCF’s registry for supported records of abuse or neglect was already a requirement for prospective employees looking to work in early education centers in the state, according to Stewart.
“So, for us, sitting here with a K through 12 system, it seemed like an obvious solution,” he said.
Other school districts considering following Ash-West’s lead
Stewart said he had heard that other districts in the state were considering following Ash-West’s lead by adding the check of DCF’s records, which is offered free of charge, to their required background checks. He added that he believed the additional check should become a state requirement.
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“We believe that a condition of licensure through DESE (the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) should be at this level,” he said, adding that the district had been receiving a lot of positive feedback from school officials across the state after word got out that Ash-West was tightening their background checks. “They all without question backed this effort.”
The additional background check would not include other reasons why an individual may have had interactions with DCF officials personally or professionally, according to Stewart, nor would it return any unsupported findings, including situations where the agency may have investigated a situation but did not determine that abuse or neglect occurred.
“When you look at what folks are already agreeing to through the CORI process and the fingerprint process, we believe (the DCF check) is actually far less intrusive in terms of their personal information,” he said, adding that CORI checks provide information about any charges associated with a prospective employee, even those in which the individual was eventually found not guilty or a case was continued without a finding.
This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Ash West school district expands employee background checks to include DCF