School districts have three options for background checks

Jeff Broddle | Cadillac News When conducting background checks, school districts can do fingerprint-based background checks, Internet Criminal History Access Tool or a mass name search.

Paul Liabenow is confident that all employees at Cadillac Area Public Schools are ethically and morally of the highest character.

To help protect the students in schools across the state, criminal history background checks for all public and nonpublic school employees have become mandatory but the CAPS superintendent said that should not be the final factor when hiring someone.

Although background checks are designed to show any information regarding misdemeanor convictions and felony arrests and convictions, if a person’s background is clean nothing will show up and that is why it is up to the districts to dive deeper before hiring a person.

“It (background checks) does not predict a future behavior. Because changes in life or lifestyle can happen, we also do a very thorough check during the interview and we check references,” he said. “If there is a pattern of what we consider inappropriate behavior, we would not hire that person. It is impossible for any school district to be 100 percent in predicting staff members’ future behavior.”

When conducting background checks, there are three tools school districts have at their disposal, according to Chad Canfield, manager of the criminal history unit for the Michigan State Police.

These tools include fingerprint-based background checks, Internet Criminal History Access Tool or ICHAT or a mass name search. Of the three, Canfield said fingerprinting is the best way to determine criminal history because it searches state as well as FBI records.

“To have it on criminal history, a person has to have fingerprints taken and those have to be sent to us in order for it to show up,” Canfield said. “It stays on there until I hear there are additional charges or I need to release the arrest which would mean it would not show up on criminal history.”

When charges, such as Criminal Sexual Conduct, arise against a school employee, CAPS Board of Education President Craig Weidner said it is normal for boards to err on the side of caution. This would include removing the person out of the classroom, generally with pay until he or she is proven guilty. Although a person is innocent until proven guilty in our court system, most of the time if charges are brought against an employee the damage is done, Weidner said.

“We try to be aware of that and if we have any inkling we will err on the side of caution but you do put the teacher at risk. If someone put a false claim in ... a lot of times the damage is done,” he said. “Our school board will err on the side of caution. What’s best for the child is where our action will be.”

rcharmoli@cadillacnews.com | 775-NEWS (6397)

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Background Checks for School Employees