Background Checks and Teachers
What Parents and Administrators Need to Know
The importance of background checking a teacher cannot be stressed enough. As teachers are relied upon to provide education and in many circumstances work with children, many of the reasons for ensuring a teacher is reliable and respectable are easily discernable. However, many other justifications for background checking exist, so I’ll try to cover this here.
One of the immediate issues that should be at the forefront of parents and administrators minds is whether or not the teacher has a criminal past. No caring parents would want their child or children to be educated by an individual with a history of sex offences, violence or kidnapping. Furthermore, this may reveal previous or existing usage of illegal substances.
Child safety is rightly regarded by many as the primary reason for conducting a background search on a teacher. Children, and indeed anybody receiving education, should be able to regard teaching environments as safe and secure places. Beyond the concerns about criminality, other causes for background checks persist, as perfectly moral people may be unsuitable for instructing roles.
For example, background checks can provide details of medical history. Employers will need to know if current or prospective teachers are physically capable of carrying out their job effectively. Parents will undeniably feel happier knowing that their children will be taught regularly and by somebody with the physical and mental capacity to deal with the stresses of teaching.
A further administrative step that’s worth taking is inspecting for doctored resumes. It’s easy for people to embellish their backgrounds and invent fictional educational achievements. For obvious reasons, we all want our children to be taught by learned and competent role models, rather than fraudsters with limited teaching abilities and qualification. Whilst such individuals may in fact be well placed to instruct in the teaching of creative writing, they aren’t likely to be people that you’d wish to employ.
Administrators and parents should also be aware of the potential negatives associated with background searches. When inspecting the background of a current employee, it always helps to be sensitive and avoid insulting the person in question. Try to elaborate that background checks are a necessary and standard procedure, and in no way imply that there is a suspicion of wrongdoing or serious character flaws.
In addition to this, background checks can be a costly procedure in certain cases, not just financially. The time spent on background checks may appear to infringe on other seemingly more worthwhile pursuits. However, this isn’t something that should concern you enough to prevent you from undertaking such necessary research.
Background checks are hugely important, and child safety in particular is not an area where corners should be cut. When employing teachers, administrators should be prepared to spend as much time and money as necessary to provide students with the correct calibre of teacher. Unsafe, unreliable or unqualified individuals should not occupy teaching roles.
Another point worth making is that parents as well as administrative bodies may make background checks. As most parents understand, they are not fully relieved of their parental responsibilities whilst their children are being schooled. Any parents wishing to carry out background checks on teachers should aim to follow the advice listed above. As with all record searching matters, background checkers should be patient, rigorous and careful. As a final point, I think it’s appropriate to state that background checks for teachers should never be overlooked.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Background Checks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
[...] many school systems background checks on teachers have become standard practice. You should learn more about what is involved in your background [...]