A bill which passed the US House by voice vote Tuesday would require background checks for prospective school employees. There are already background check requirements in Missouri and most states. However, the stated purpose is to create uniform standards. The title of the bill is the "Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act."
All schools that receive federal funding, including Worth County and Northeast Nodaway, would be required to conduct checks that consist of a search of the state criminal registry in the state where the prospective employee resides and has previously resided, a search of state-based child abuse and neglect registries, an FBI fingerprint check, and a search of the National Sex Offender Registry.
The law, if passed by the Senate and signed by President Obama, would prohibit the employment of an individual as a school employee if such individual refuses to consent to a criminal background check, makes a false statement in connection with such criminal background check, or has been convicted of homicide, child abuse or neglect, crimes against children including child pornography, spousal abuse, crimes involving rape or sexual assault, kidnapping, arson, physical assault, battery, or a drug-related offense committed within five years of such individual's criminal background check. Prospective employees would be disqualified if they have been convicted of any other crime that is a violent or sexual crime against a minor.
Should schools find out that an individual who is disqualified under this law is attempting to apply as a school employee, they would be required to contact law enforcement that such individual has so applied. Criminal background checks would be required to be done again at least once every five years. This is to prevent employees from concealing conviction for a crime in order to avoid being terminated. Each employee who has had a check is required to be provided with a copy of the check. Schools would be required to provide for a timely process for appeal so prospective employees can challenge the accuracy of findings under this law.
This law applies not only to school employees, but employees of other organizations that have a contract to provide services to a school and whose job duty results in access to students.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA), one of the main sponsors of the bill, said on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce website that the General Accounting Office (GAO) found numerous instances in which convicted sex offenders working in schools had targeted children. The GAO found that inconsistent state laws meant that there were major gaps in protection for children. This resulted in schools unknowingly hiring sexual predators. In other cases, the GAO found cases where the school would knowingly allow such an individual to resign instead of reporting them to law enforcement.
"We owe it to our children and their families and to the honorable school officials who follow the rules to ensure that violent adults do not have access to students in our public schools," said Miller on the website. "Parents have a right to expect that their children are safe in schools and schools have an obligation to fulfill that promise."
During the debate, the one Congressman to express reservations about the bill was Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), who expressed reservations about the lifetime ban provision. He said in the Congressional Record, “I think it is important that we recognize that when we put barriers to employment that are lifetime bans, that are not sensitive to certain realities as relates to people overcoming criminal backgrounds, and when we put prophylactic rules that don’t account for particular offenses in a nuanced way, we do run the risk of doing a good thing, but doing too much of a thing, and thereby leading to some unexpected and unwanted results.”
The West Memphis Three were three men who were wrongfully convicted of child murders that prosecutors said was part of a satanic ritual in 1993. However, after new forensic evidence surfaced that exonerated them in 2007, the Three struck a plea bargain with prosecutors in 2011 that allowed them to be sentenced for time served as well as 10-year suspended sentences. They entered what is known as an Alford Plea, meaning that they maintained their innocence while acknowledging that the prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them. One of the Memphis Three, Damien Echols, spoke at Northwest Missouri State about his experiences recently. Echols was in death row at one point. Three movies and numerous books were made and written about their case, mostly critical of the prosecution. The popular music group Metallica allowed their music to be used in the movies, one of the few times they have done so.
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