One high school in Alabama is wondering if it should start issuing background checks to employees.
Lee High School is taking this question seriously after a faculty member was recently arrested. Milton Tyson, a 39-year-old special education teacher at the school, was recently charged with possession of marijuana and counterfeit clothing. Tyson had been working at the school for more than 10 years, according to an article by WHNT, but hadn’t undergone a background check since 2005.
Further checks on Tyson’s history found he was arrested in March for menacing, charged with assault in May and was arrested for criminal trespassing in 2006, a charge that was later dropped.
Dr. Ann Roy Moore, Huntsville City Schools superintendent, said the school looks for felony charges and convictions when doing background checks, which didn’t start in Alabama school systems until early 2000.
“Once someone has fingerprinting it goes through A.B.I. and F.B.I. you get the results back and it will tell you if the person has any major kind of felonies on his or her record, perhaps even a misdemeanor charge,” Moore said in the article. “But what we’re looking for are the major felonies. So my understanding is Mr. Tyson was cleared through that background check.
“Now after that we don’t go back and do another background check, but we have a very good working relationship with law enforcement here,” Moore continued. “So if someone has a major crime and they’re booked by Huntsville Police Department then we’re notified. Now I won’t tell you over time if we become aware of lots, and lots, lots of misdemeanors my typical thing is to call someone and say look I’m hearing these things and you know you kind of need to get it in check.”
Dr. Moore is not opposed to more background checks to keep employees on their toes, and assure only the best teachers maintain education jobs in Alabama.
“I would not object to it,” she added. “I think it would be timely and costly to do it. I would say teachers are just like any other citizen in the City of Huntsville in this case or in the state of Alabama. Sometimes teachers make the same mistakes as other professionals might make.”
