School district toughens background checks on employees, applicants

All applicants have been subject to criminal background checks in the past by the State Law Enforcement Division. But those checks were limitedto crimes committed in South Carolina.

The district soon plans to use the Safe Schools Project to conduct online multi-state background checks. That program provides access to more than 30 million criminal records, and checks sex-offender registries in 39 states, according to a press release.

Beginning this month, the district began accepting job applications online through a program called WinOcular. The Safe Schools Project is offered through the WinOcular program at a cost of $21,000 a year. WinOcular cost the district an initial $40,000 plus $11,000 a year.

Rosswurm said the district also is considering doing multi-state checks on current employees. At the very least, she said, periodic SLED background checks will be conducted on employees sometime next year.

Both Rosswurm and Darah Latourelle, director of personnel services, are unsure if the district had checked state sex-offender registries during the hiring process. Rosswurm said it was her understanding that those registries were checked. Latourelle said it was not something she could speak to because different employees are responsible for doingchecks for different departments.

Board of Education members are not sure why the district didn't toughen up on background checks earlier.

"We just didn't do it," said board secretary Laura Bush. "It wasn't a decision that the board made or a decision that was brought to the board."

Still, Bush doesn't feel the district is running behind in instituting more thorough measures. The school district, she said, is simply changing with the times.

Board chairman Fred Washington said the board wants to make sure the process of setting up thorough background checks is done properly.

"The board wants it done yesterday, but there are logistic realities," he said. "We want to make sure we have adults that aren't predators and aren't going to hurt our kids."

Board member Joan Deery, elected in 2006, pointed the blame at previous administrators for not increasing background checks.

"In my opinion, the last three superintendents were not very good managers," she said, referring to Phillip McDaniel, Edna Crews and Herman Gaither.

Rosswurm, who has been human resource officer since September, said it was her "sense" that the district has not had a "vehicle" to conduct more comprehensive background checks. Superintendent Valerie Truesdale said she could not address what happened before she took her post last summer.

While the school district will not hire candidates who have been convicted of a felony, it does consider individuals with minor offenses, officials said. Those include arrests that are dropped or dismissed; up to two DUIs that are at least three years old; a single misdemeanor; multiple misdemeanors that are all at least three years old; and convictions for which full pardons were granted.

Recommendations

In addition to more thorough background checks on prospective employees, Praesidium, a firm that works to prevent sexual abuse that was hired at $54,000 by the Beaufort County School District, recommended the following be instituted by next school year:

•Install "lobby guards," which are outdoor security devices that scan a visitor's driver's license.

•Provide students with age-appropriate information on how to protect themselves from abuse.

•Develop new mandatory employee orientations that will include information on districtwide polices related to abuse.

•Develop a Web-based handbook addressing abuse prevention.

•Develop a packet of abuse-related information to be distributed to substitute teachers.