The Globe ran a brief, “New Mass. law requires fingerprinting teachers,” from AP today about Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday signing a law that requires teachers to submit fingerprints for criminal background checks.
The governor’s press release framed it a little differently with the press release, “Governor Patrick signs legislation to close loophole in existing background checks law and increase protections for children across the commonwealth.” (You gotta love how PR people spin and editors interpret…)
According to the press release, “all newly hired teachers, school employees, bus drivers, subcontractors and early education and care and out-of-school time providers must undergo state and national background checks prior to the start of the 2013-2014 school year. All current employees must undergo national background checks over the next three years, prior to the start of the 2016-2017 school year.”
Dan Kennedy, assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern and well-known media analyst, has started a discussion on his blog, Media Nation, saying that the law chips away at freedom.
Is this what some Newton residents have been requesting, in the wake of the arrest of one of our teachers on child pornography-related charges? I don’t completely understand how this relates to the announcement at the May 29 School Committee meeting that Newton Public Schools will expand the background checks it performs on all new hires by checking the Sex Offender Registry Information system (SORI), a nationwide database of sex crime convictions. Maybe somebody who knows a lot more than I do can explain the connection?
Ok this is getting a bit much, how would fingerprinting the Newton guy (for example) who I think didn’t have any previous convictions for child pron, have helped? It wouldn’t because he was not in a database! Teachers already have to submit to CORI checks (which are what every 3 years I think?), why does that not cover everything? It seems what is going on here is a lack of national database coordination which is another topic entirely… All these issues that have come up over the past couple years with teachers (and other public employees) seem to be their first arrests, background checks wouldn’t have caught them. Now if they tried to teach again somewhere ok, a CORI check should be enough to uncover any past issues as that is a national database. I just don’t see how this helps anybody and submits teachers to even more presumed guilt and unnecessary work for everybody…
@John_on_Central ” Teachers already have to submit to CORI checks (which are what every 3 years I think?), why does that not cover everything?”
I think up to now, the CORI checks only uncovered criminal offenses in MA but not in other states. It sounds like they had two options for tightening the system up:
1. Extend the current (name, address, SS# etc) CORI check to do a national search for previous offenses
2. Do the national search with a more foolproof but more onerous/intrusive fingerprint seach.
.. and they went for the 2nd option
You have to pick your battles. A number of states require fingerprinting of teachers and others who work with children -N.Y., N.J., N.H. are a few that I know of. If the State of Mass. wants my fingerprints, fine.
Ok, that makes a bit of sense and yes one does have to pick battles for sure. I was not aware of the CORI limitation… Thanks for informing!
CORI is only for MA. There is no one place one can go to to get an exhaustive picture of someone’s criminal history. It’s state by state. There are entities one can employ to do other states, with varying charges by state.
SORI is solely focused on sex based crimes [that CORI is not picking up.] But calling it a nationwide index isn’t accurate. Again, each state probably has its own version of SORI. Only if a registered sex offender from another state moves here AND properly notifies the state they are an offender will that person appear on the SORI.
Disagree Dan, I just went through the TSA-Pre process. They get everything.
Kim, I’m not saying one can’t “get everything” but one doesn’t get it from one source. It’s a very fragmented process [unless it’s been greatly modified in the past two years.]
I believe this is a good move. I have worked where the policy is to do a nationwide search (at a much larger cost) and others where only a CORI is required. The CORI is required even when people have just moved to MA. What good does that do. Most states don’t have a CORI type system. Some require you to call the local police station for information. Who has that kind of time. My concern is cost and coordination.
I am curious…..
If you already have something in your file, which came up in the last CORI check (when hired for your position)….
Can they use that same thing against you in new CORI checks?