Caledonia Argus

New school employees will be subject to background checks

Posted: 6/17/03

by Andrew Miller
Argus News Reporter

New employees to ISD #299 will now be subject to a criminal background check.

The school board agreed on the measure June 9 after hearing input from Phil Langford, a representative from Choice Point, which will administer the background checks. Langford told the board that such background checks can help prevent theft, offset the risk of negligent hiring lawsuits, protect students against sexual predators, and minimize the risk of workplace violence.

By contracting with Choice Point, the district will have access to a website, whereby it can select different background checks for each new employee. A full background check includes searches for criminal information at the county, state, and federal levels, as well as a search of sex offender registries. The search results will provide the district with an individualís criminal convictions and pending criminal charges.

There is no service agreement fee that Choice Point will charge the district, and billing will be based strictly on the number of background checks performed. The district will probably pay no more than $50 per background check, Langford said, and depending on the amount of information the district requests, the amount could be considerably less.

The district can limit a particular background check to just the county and state levels, and in such instances, the price could drop to around $25. Langford suggested that, for new employees who have been living in Houston County their entire lives, all that would be necessary is a background check at the county level.

Getting the information to the district from a full background check will take roughly three days, Langford told the board, but if the search is limited to, say, Houston County, it will take just one or two days.

The board voted 6-0 to contract through Choice Point, and also agreed to have new employees subject to the background checks pay half the cost or, if for some reason the cost is greater than $50, to pay $25.

Secondary principal interviews this week

The search for a new high school principal has yielded three finalists.

Over forty individuals applied for the position, which became vacant after CHS Principal Brian Doty agreed to serve as the middle school principal, the school-to-work program coordinator, and the special education coordinator starting in Fall 2003.

Initial interviews were held by the school board last week with nine of the applicants, and the search was subsequently narrowed to three candidates. The board conducted additional interviews with those three earlier this week, and District Superintendent Jim Tool hopes that the board will have reached its decision by the end of the week.

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