Background checks

March 26, 2008 - Legislators are considering a bill to extend criminal background checks. Two separate bills filed last week seek to broaden the Child Protection Act, which determines what information school districts can receive from background checks conducted by State Police.

Currently, school districts are provided with that information going back only 10 years.

The bills, which will be heard in committee after the legislative session begins March 31, would remove the 10-year limit for convictions outside the Child Protection Act.

The legislation was prompted by the arrest of a school janitor who had been hired despite known prior arrests. School officials hired Schwertz despite the fact that he was serving five years of probation for bank fraud when he applied to work in St. Tammany schools and that two protective orders had been taken out against him, by his fiancee and by his parents. He had also been convicted of DWI.

He was arrested in March and is facing seven counts of aggravated rape and two counts of child molestation.

Joan Hunt, deputy counsel for the Department of Education, said the teachers union has traditionally opposed strengthening the law for fear that changes would encroach on privacy rights.

TT - What a surprise.