“Parents need to know that our schools are doing all we can to ensure the safety of our children,” State Auditor Susan Montee said. "The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the General Assembly need to work together to improve the language in the law to require school districts to perform Family Care Safety Registry background checks on all potential employees."

(JEFFERSON CITY, MO) – Today, Missouri State Auditor Susan Montee released an audit of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Educator Certification Background Checks, stating that Missouri laws regarding background checks for educators are not adequate to ensure students’ safety. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is responsible for ensuring background checks are conducted on applicants for educator certificates and for reviewing background check results.

State law requires applicants for most school district positions to submit to both a criminal history background check and a Family Care Safety Registry (FCSR) background check prior to having contact with a student. However, due to the imprecise language in the law, DESE officials have not been requiring, and not all school districts are performing, FCSR background checks prior to employing educators and other school district personnel.

State law does not require FCSR background checks for educators before they can obtain a certificate to teach. In addition, while state law intended the Child Abuse/Neglect Central Registry to be checked as part of the FCSR background checks, state law does not specifically require Central Registry background checks for educators. During our review, we found instances of certified educators who had a criminal background and/or a history of committing other offenses, such as child abuse or neglect. DESE officials had not been aware of all of the cases we found because FCSR checks and periodic background checks have not been required.

State law does not require any periodic reviews of educator backgrounds to determine whether new crimes or other offenses have been committed. In addition, the teacher and substitute certification databases contain records having invalid social security numbers (SSN). However, SSNs are not validated against an appropriate form of identification nor are there any policies or procedures requiring validation.

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