When parents send their children to school, they should never have to worry that a teacher or other adult would do or say anything inappropriate to their child.

Unfortunately, in extremely rare cases, it does happen. A teacher or other adult at school behaves in a way that violates school district policy, the terms of their professional license, and sometimes the law.

The Columbus Dispatch recently published a series of stories about how too often these people continue to work in schools, either in the same school district or in another one. And last week the Journal-News wrote about an online database that the Ohio Department of Education has made public. The database (https://dnet01.ode.state.oh.us/core2.3/ODE.CORE.ProfConduct.Public.UI/) includes the names and school districts of about 1,700 educators who have been disciplined by the state over the last eight years.

I strongly support the idea of such a database, and that the public has access to it. It is one more tool to help ensure that educators who violate the most important trust we place in them are known to any other potential employers.

It’s likely that any school district of any size will have at least a few names on the list. Our school district has four. None of them work in our district anymore. (One actually never worked for us. He had applied for a substitute teaching position, and the background check we do for every applicant turned up the negative information, so he was not hired.) 

It is a matter on which this school district has long had a very firm position, and that will continue. If someone harms any of our kids, we will report it. We always have and always will.

We work hard in our personnel department on background checks for job applicants and even current employees. We’ve long submitted fingerprints to Ohio’s Bureau Of Criminal Identification and Investigation. We’ve also long submitted prints to the FBI for applicants who have lived in Ohio for less than five years. Soon we’ll be routinely sending all prints to the FBI. This will take place even for our current teachers, when they renew their teaching licenses. Teachers who have permanent certificates will have prints submitted on a periodic basis. And we use the database I mentioned above to screen names of job applicants.

We do background checks on all job applicants, not just teachers, before we finalize employment. We also do them on any volunteer who will have unsupervised access to students. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but we will do whatever it takes to protect the 10,000 students who go to school here.

We have a well-defined procedure to follow whenever we learn that an improper situation might exist. Protecting students is paramount, but it’s also important to protect employees’ rights. Not every rumor, or accusation, is based on fact.

Our policy on staff-student relations is very clear. You can see it on our website (www.fairfieldcityschools.com). It’s policy GBH. It says that staff cannot date students, cannot send them on personal errands, and should not give students gifts. It also says that staff members “shall not associate with students at any time in any situation or activity, including electronic communication, which could be considered sexually suggestive or involve the presence or use of tobacco, alcohol, or drugs.”

If anyone ever becomes aware that this policy is being violated in our school district, please feel free to contact me directly.

Cathy Milligan
Superintendent
Fairfield City School District

Published in the Fairfield Echo, Dec. 6, 2007.