The Department of Education hopes to expand its policy mandating criminal background checks of employees by requiring the same kind of scrutiny for student teachers as well as subcontractors or service providers for the public schools.

Proposed legislation prepared for the coming legislative session would include people who work close to children but who are not covered by the current law that requires criminal background checks for all employees.

The proposal was prompted in part by a scathing state audit of Kailua High School in September last year, which said, in part, that the school had been lax in seeing criminal background checks completed on coaches hired during the 2005-06 school year. The audit noted the three-month service of a head coach who had been convicted of murder plus three others convicted of lesser offenses, including drunken driving.

The DOE has since raised questions about the audit, but the speed and timeliness of background checks are still an issue. The audit prompted the DOE to scrutinize its system for other shortcomings, but despite repeated requests by The Advertiser, no comprehensive findings have been released.

State law does not allow the DOE to do criminal background checks of student teachers or subcontractors, and that "raises concerns regarding the health, safety and well-being of children," the DOE said in documentation that accompanies the proposed legislation drafted for the session that opens Wednesday.

"This bill should filter out potentially unsuitable providers, subcontractors and Institute of Higher Education trainees," the DOE said. "The immediate impact to the public will be to enable a more comprehensive review of those individuals working in close proximity to children."

The proposed legislation would not include the thousands of volunteers in the public schools, but would require background checks for hundreds of others providing professional services. However, Donald Young, interim dean of the College of Education at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, said fingerprinting is already done on all student teachers before they enter the classroom. It's paid for by schools where the students are assigned and costs about $50 per person.

"Quite frankly, it's hard to argue against it," Young said. "It's hard to argue it's an invasion of privacy when you're talking about things that have occurred in schools across the country. ... This is certainly making kids safer."

DEFINING TERMS

Under the proposed legislation, a provider is defined as any organization or individual that intends to enter into a contract with the DOE, or who is currently contracted by the department to provide services to children.

A subcontractor is defined as any organization or individual working for a provider to offer services to school children.

This could include thousands of individuals offering a vast array of services — everything from agencies offering special-education services to children under the Felix Consent Decree, to tutors working with students before or after school under mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Under the legislation as proposed, providers under contract to the DOE also would be required to submit to criminal background checks.

If passed, the bill would ask the hundreds of college students studying to be teachers to pay for the background check themselves. Last year the DOE hired 628 newly minted teachers who graduated from Hawai'i college institutions, both public and private, and ostensibly did their practice teaching in Hawai'i schools.

The proposed legislation also calls for an appropriation of $112,000 to add these groups of people to the criminal history background checking procedure, which is done through the Hawai'i Criminal Justice Data Center.

AUDIT ERRORS

Regarding the revelations at Kailua High School, DOE spokesman Greg Knudsen said the department believes the audit erred in two instances.

Knudsen said at least one of the people who didn't have a background check wasn't on the DOE payroll. Only employees are required to have criminal history scrutiny.

And Knudsen said the job was not offered to the convicted murderer because of what the background check turned up.

"He had been in line to get a job, but he didn't," Knudsen said. "We found that background and the process was terminated."

However, the audit states this individual served as a head coach for three months before the discovery of his background was made. At that time, "the athletic director, with the approval of the principal and department officials, removed him from the coaching position," the audit states.

In its review of the system prompted by the audit, the DOE is looking at whether there have been other shortcomings in criminal background checks to determine if the rest of the schools in the state are operating appropriately.

Knudsen said some coaches in the statewide system — he did not specify which schools — did not yet have background checks, but they weren't yet working with students.

"It shows some who haven't started coaching who haven't had their backgrounds checked," he said of the overall scrutiny. "But they aren't currently interacting with students.

"Part of it is the seasonal nature of the coaches."

But Knudsen sees the larger question as the issue of the thousands of volunteers who offer a wide variety of services free to schools throughout the state — and have never had criminal history background checks.

"We are given permission to use criminal history background as a condition for employment," Knudsen said. But, "the law that authorizes the department to do criminal history checks specifically says this does not apply to volunteers."

Even suggesting that volunteers undergo background checks could raise a whole new set of issues.

"It would be overwhelming to do a full-blown criminal history check on every single person who gets involved with their school," Knudsen said. "It also could be quite an imposition. It would do more to discourage involvement (with the schools.)"

Knudsen said schools are already conscious of such concerns. And he said balance has to be applied.

It's important to look at what kind of proximity volunteers or others have to children on a school campus, he said. Someone working directly with the children is going to require different scrutiny "than someone who comes in to do some wiring."

"You have to bring this back to some sense of reality," he said.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.