The Dallas Morning News reports on a Dallas Independent School District (DISD) operation to deal with employees with a criminal past. Here’s the lead paragraph.
The Dallas Independent School District has fired, or forced to resign, 24 employees since November for failing to notify the district of arrests or court judgments for serious crimes, including indecent exposure, theft and felony assault, according to information received from DISD. The employees include nine teachers and a teacher’s assistant. DISD also has reported at least 141 educators to the Texas Education Agency for having a criminal background or for running afoul of district rules.
The firings came about because a Dallas Morning News investigation last year. The paper found that the DISD was in violation of several laws and administrative procedures involving the hiring of employees and the reporting of criminal histories to the Texas Education Agency.
Like many stories we’ve seen lately, the problem wasn’t having a rule or a law in place. The problem was following the rules in a timely way. In Dallas, for example, criminal background checks are supposed to be part of the hiring process. Background checks are also supposed to be run annually.
Those checks are supposed to support another rule which “requires that employees who are arrested or convicted or who receive deferred adjudication for any felony or any offense involving moral turpitude report the crime in writing to the superintendent within three workdays.”
Some employees claimed that they didn’t follow the policy because they didn’t know about it. So now the District will require all employees to sign a statement that they know about the policy and understand it.
It’s almost always better to follow your procedures and do background checks during the hiring process. Depending on the jobs you have, you may also want to do annual checks.
People are more likely to avoid reporting bad things to you if they don’t think they’ll be caught. If they are caught, they’re likely to claim ignorance of the reporting requirement. That’s human nature. Your job is to put the checks and systems in place so that people know your policies and are likely to follow them.