Legislation Would Seal Teachers’ Criminal Records

Privacy law considered by state legislators would keep criminal acts, like Texas DWI, hidden from public.

Austin, Texas – The Texas state legislature is currently debating a measure that would keep the results of criminal background checks on school workers hidden from the general public. Information on any past criminal charge, including sexual assault and driving while intoxicated in Texas, would be sealed.

Citing protection from identity theft, the bill is being pushed by the Association of Texas Professional Educators in response to 2007 legislation calling for the fingerprinting and background check of all school employees across the state. The issue is not with the checks themselves but rather whether the resulting information should be available to all. Public perception could lead to unwarranted reactions that fail to account for the nature or date of the offense, whether the information is correct, and even whether the charges were dropped or the defendant was found not guilty.

A study by a Dallas newspaper has revealed that 4300 Texas school employees who have undergone the fingerprint check against a national criminal database were found to have been charged with misdemeanors. Another 900 have been charged with felonies. The legal battle over releasing the criminal histories of school employees started when the Austin Independent School District refused public information requests brought by local reporters. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that the information was not public because the background checks were done on a federal crime computer making it exempt.

Lobbyists for the proposed new law say that the 2007 fingerprinting initiative was intended to give school district personnel and the State Board of Educator Certification information to protect school children, and that it would be unfair to release the results of background checks to the public.

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