Fingerprint Check In Schools Ok’d

If legislation approved by the Idaho House becomes law, teachers and all other Idaho school employees will have to be fingerprinted for criminal background checks.

The House voted 61-5 on Friday for a bill that House Education Chairman Ron Black of Twin Falls said would help weed out the few “bad apples” among educators. The measure heads to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future in the Education Committee.

The bill:

Requires all teachers, even those who have been in the classroom for 20 years or more, to submit fingerprints by 2001 for state and national searches for criminal violations. Those found to have certain violations, mainly sex crimes or violent crimes against children, could be fired immediately.

Support personnel such as aides and janitors, and school administrators also would have to go through the background checks.

School employees would have to pay the $40 fee themselves, but a district could agree to reimburse them.

Local school districts would decide for themselves whether to require the tests for volunteers.

The Idaho Education Association opposes the bill because it requires all teachers to go through the background checks. The union said it could go along with a law requiring background checks for new employees, but not everyone.