USD 253 Emporia does not plan to change hiring procedures in light of a request by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach on background checks.
Kobach urges districts to do background checks on all school workers after a Medicaid Inspector General interim report finding nearly a third of Kansas school employees providing Medicaid-related services don’t have background check information filed. The recommendation calls for current background investigations on file for all school employees, regardless of role, and it asks for lawmakers to pass legislation mandating fingerprint-based criminal history checks for all school workers every five years.
An audit looked at 17 of the state’s school districts. Of the over 3,700 Medicaid providers working with children across Kansas, sample tests found that nearly 1,200 may be employed without background checks.
Saying it’s “logical” for residents to want school workers to be legally cleared to work with children, Inspector General Steven Anderson also says it’s “inexcusable” for people with serious crimes in their past to have “unsupervised access” to kids.
The Medicaid Inspector General study also says teachers are required to do one background check, but there were aa handful of teachers who hadn’t had a background check since the late 1990s.
USD 253 Director of Community Relations Lyndel Landgren says current district policy has all new hires passing a background check, followed by board approval before prospective employees are approved for schools or district facilities. Landgren says the safety and security of both students and staff are the district’s top priority — and the district has no plans to adjust its practices because it’s already using best practices for safety and security.
