Whether you are a teacher or a parent, the safety of your children or of the children you teach should be one of your main concerns. There are many voices that say that background checks should be performed on a regular basis in order to be sure that children will suffer no harm. It has been said that all the personnel of a school should undergo very thorough background checks; not only teachers, but also all the rest of the personnel comes in direct contact with our children, so it is advisable to investigate their past too: from the janitor to the school crossing guard, there is a lot of non-teaching staff that we should not forget about if we decide to resort to any kind of .background checks.

Regrettably enough, there are a lot of schools that haven't taken into consideration yet the advantages of background checks, although this could prevent them from employing people who could show up to be a threat to our children. There is the general opinion that people having a history of child abuse (even the ones who have a record of abusive behavior towards their own children) should not be near our children. Even though certain efforts have been made in this direction, we cannot yet talk about a generalization of this trend - not all schools see background checks as important tools in the process of employing or not new personnel.

On the other hand, every school board should see that the expenses of such background checks are insignificant if compared to the risks we could submit our children to. Then again, it is not only the children's safety we are talking about, but also the safety of the other employees too.

As mentioned, more and more learning institutions have decided to require as a basic criterion of selection different types of background checks - some candidates are even asked to submit to being finger printed at the local police station. Even though this method seems a bit uncomfortable for the future employee (you can imagine that no one likes to be finger printed, especially if it is in front of people you know), one should always keep in mind that criminal background checks are only being used in order to insure everybody's safety, even your own.

Another method would be for the school to collaborate with a private investigation firm, specialized in such reports. They are able to provide you all the data you consider useful when intending to hire new personnel and spare you the efforts of doing it on your own. Still, if you decide it's too much and rather do it by yourself, you should know that it is obligatory to let the candidates know about your intentions; moreover, you should have them sign a piece of paper authorizing you to do background checks on them - let's not forget about the Federal law concerning privacy.

It is not only schools that should seriously think about background checks, but also parents who intend to hire a nanny. Any information about her background is useful, so parents should not ignore the importance of such investigation. Our children need to be safe at school as well as at home, and any person who comes near them can be a potential threat if we are not careful enough.

And if you still think that background checks imply too much of an effort, let's take a look at some more dark figures: did you know that an estimated 1 of 3 girls and 1 of 6 boys are sexually violated prior to the age 18? Maybe this is an extreme example, but the results of negligence can be dramatic. After all, everybody's safety depends on our vigilance.

Back To Articles...