HARTFORD – School boards throughout the state would have five days to perform criminal history background checks, under legislation approved Monday afternoon in the House of Representatives.
The bill, which next heads to the Senate, was approved 139-0 and would sharply reduce the current 30-day period to check the records of job applicants.
“I think recently, certainly in my part of the state, Southwestern Connecticut, there were a couple incidents that were very troubling to the schools and the communities,” said Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, ranking member of the Education Committee.
The bill was partially in response to a sex scandal at Stamford High School involving a former teacher and a student; and former felons involved in charter schools, including Bridgeport.
“You never know if that’s the sort of behavior you’ll find in a background check,” Lavielle said. “This bill does not increase the number of background checks, it does ensure that school employees submit to the background checks as early in the process as possible.”
“This bill will tighten up some of the loopholes so that we can do background checks faster,” said Rep. Andre Baker, D-Bridgeport.
Last year, the Hartford-based Family Urban Schools of Excellence (FUSE) charter school company failed after its leader was found to have lied about his credentials and hired convicted felons to work in the schools, including Bridgeport’s Dunbar School. Most recently, this year, the principal FUSE hired to run Dunbar was arrested after she started using the school’s student activities account as her personal ATM to gamble at Mohegan Sun.