The Need for Background Verification Checks on School Employees

For the past few years there are several hundred thousand cases reported on school employees abusing the school children. Parents invest huge trust on school employees as they act as a strong pillar in educating our children, discovering that a teacher or other school employee is a convicted felon can be so unsettling.

It’s shocking to know the level of safety that’s prevailing in our school premises, learning that someone was sacked for a crime in one district and gets hired somewhere else is a major cause for concern. With the growing transgression surrounding teachers, more parents and community leaders are calling for greater background checks.

Employees and educational job seekers should realize that a background check for school employee position is going to become more vigorous and potentially irksome. Although the cases of school employees abusing children are relatively few they are wigglers for public attention.

It’s the duty of every educational institution to perform a pre-employment verification on their potential school employees, this background verification on school employees serves the best interests of the applicant and most importantly the children.

On considering the safety of school children, no level of background check is too much “Studies show that schools in small districts don’t screen applicants as extensively as schools in larger districts”.

Before recruiting a staff for your school, make sure that the staff goes through a series of background verification. Schools are required to conduct background checks on its newly hired teachers, most schools do not perform a background check on a teacher’s criminal past once they are added to the school’s payroll system. As a result, some teachers may enter into their career without any record, yet may commit unnoticed crimes while working for the school. Schools need to ensure that those working with their students lack any criminal convictions or crimes relating to children. While some checks will look at your credit history and your employment history, most of the background checks used by schools primarily focuses on your criminal history.