Republican Legislators Oppose Background Checks for Educators

"We have so many outstanding teachers in Wisconsin and they don't need their reputations tarnished by a few bad apples," said Republican Governor Tommy G. Thompson. The date was April 28^th 1994 and the event was the signing ceremony mandating that all Wisconsin public teachers undergo background checks as part of the hiring and retention process.  

Today, back ground checks are not limited to public educators. Many school districts require background checks for custodians, secretaries, bus drivers, volunteer coaches, and even parents wanting to donate time in their own child’s classroom. Such checks are not state mandated, but more and more schools are electing to voluntarily adopt such requirements in order to ensure greater safety for the youth that they serve. 

The WI Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is required by law to conduct a background check of each initial and renewal applicant requesting a public educator license. The primary purpose of a background check is to determine if the applicant has engaged in any behavior that endangers the health, welfare, safety or education of pupils.

Governor Walker's budget removes the requirement that teachers at independent charter schools be licensed by the state; instead requiring teachers at those schools have only a bachelor's degree of some kind. The switch allows people with revoked teaching licenses to potentially end up back in the classroom. Charter schools could voluntarily make background checks part of their employment requirements, but it would not be state mandated.

Topics of charter schools, vouchers, and virtual schools have certainly drawn contentious debate across the state in regards to the state budget. Putting all of that aside, I want to simply ask why in the world anyone would oppose background checks for any educator who works our children. Naively I was certain that this was going to be the one amendment that would receive true bipartisan support from the legislators in our area. I especially thought that legislators like Rep. Kleefisch who appears to be tough on sex predators and child molesters would proudly support the amendment.  I clearly missed the mark on this one as I watched Rep Kleefisch and both Fitzgerald’s vote it down.

Think about that for a minute, there are three assemblymen and one senator in our district, yet Andy Jorgenson was the only one who stood up and demanded that we protect our children from sex offenders in school! Do we really have to be so partisan based on such matters as child safety – sad, very sad.

Sincerely,

Gary