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Background Checks

Oklahoma Schools Looking to Standardize Background Checks

The Oklahoma School Board is looking to standardize its background checks.  Like many school boards,  state and public service organizations,  the Education Department is taking its background screening program under review.    As often happens with school boards and public service agencies, a substitute teacher was found to have a criminal record after he was accused of sending out lewd text messages to a 16-year-old student.

I could make cracks that this previously convicted substitute teacher was the modern man, sending lewd texting messages in lieu of obscene phone calls.   But then one form of soliciting a minor with lewd messages is just as creepy and as threatening as another.   As for the school board, it is an embarrassing situation, at least, to say nothing of the harm the teacher could cause.

Apparently, there is a breakdown among Oklahoma  school districts as to whether substitute teachers had to submit to background checks.   Background checks are an additional expense to school districts that are strapped for cash in this economic downturn.   There is no state agency or public service group that isn’t experiencing budgetary constraints.   With respect to many of the Oklahoma School districts prevailing wisdom was that most substitute teachers are local teachers and in most smaller cities and towns people know who they are.  But now we are in a  changing landscape with people moving around.  Essentially when it comes to protecting our children and the public at large, we can assume nothing.

Yet, it is understandable that budget constraints are such that conducting background checks on substitute teachers can be a financial burden.   Substitute teachers are generally short term and the  background screening process has to be quick in order to be effective.  The school can’t have a teacher start working with kids without the background check and consider the process effective.  Yet time constraints are what they are that the background check must return quickly so the substitute teacher can start working right away.

It is a tough call for cash strapped school boards.   But overall it pays to check them out before you hire.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.