U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

93-834 PDF 2004

H.R. 2649, THE SCHOOLS 

SAFELY ACQUIRING FACULTY 

EXCELLENCE ACT OF 2003

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY 

COMPETITIVENESS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

May 24, 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Serial No. 108-60

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

Cass Ballenger, North Carolina 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Sam Johnson, Texas 

James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania 

Charlie Norwood, Georgia 

Fred Upton, Michigan 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Jim DeMint, South Carolina 

Johnny Isakson, Georgia 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Tom Osborne, Nebraska 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Tom Cole, Oklahoma 

Jon C. Porter, Nevada 

John Kline, Minnesota 

John R. Carter, Texas 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee 

Phil Gingrey, Georgia 

Max Burns, Georgia 

George Miller, California 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Major R. Owens, New York 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Betty McCollum, Minnesota 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Ed Case, Hawaii 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Denise L. Majette, Georgia 

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland 

Tim Ryan, Ohio 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York

Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ McKEON, California, Chairman

Johnny Isakson, Georgia, Vice Chairman 

John A. Boehner, Ohio 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Sam Johnson, Texas 

Fred Upton, Michigan 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Tom Osborne, Nebraska 

Tom Cole, Oklahoma 

Jon C. Porter, Nevada 

John R. Carter, Texas 

Phil Gingrey, Georgia 

Max Burns, Georgia 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Betty McCollum, Minnesota 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland 

Tim Ryan, Ohio 

Major R. Owens, New York 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

George Miller, California, ex officio 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on May 24, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of Members: 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’, Chairman, Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, Committee on Education and the Workforce ........ 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Nevada ........................................................................................................... 4

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 6

Statement of Witnesses: 

Lark, Carol, Principal, C.P. Squires Elementary, North Las Vegas, Nevada ................................................................................................................ 10

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 11

Rice, Dr. George Ann, Associate Superintendent, Human Resources Division, Clark County Schools, Las Vegas, Nevada ........................................ 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

Stutz, DJ, President, Nevada State PTA, Member, Board of the National 

PTA, Las Vegas, Nevada .............................................................................. 12

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 14

(1)

H.R. 2649, THE SCHOOLS SAFELY ACQUIRING 

FACULTY EXCELLENCE ACT OF 2003

Monday, May 24, 2004

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Las Vegas, Nevada 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., at Clark 

County School District, 2832 East Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, Nevada, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon [Chairman of the Subcommittee] Presiding. 

Present: Representatives McKeon and Porter. 

Chairman MCKEON. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee 

on 21st Century Competitiveness of the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce will come to order. 

We’re meeting today to hear testimony on H.R. 2649, the Schools 

Safely Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act of 2003. 

I’d like to thank the Clark County School District for hosting this 

hearing today. I appreciate their hospitality, and I’m pleased to be 

here. 

I’m eager to hear from our witnesses, but before I begin I ask for 

unanimous consent for the hearing record to remain open 14 days 

to allow member statements and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing 

record. 

No objection. So ordered. 

STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ McKEON, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21st CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Good morning. I’d like to welcome each of you to our hearing 

today to discuss the need for teacher background checks and to examine the provisions of H.R. 2649, the Schools Safely Acquiring 

Faculty Excellence Act of 2003, a bill that was introduced by my 

colleague, Congressman Porter, to help keep our children safe in 

the classroom. 

Mr. Porter is new on our Committee. This is his first term in 

Congress and he’s already demonstrated great leadership ability 

and has had legislation passed through our Committee, so it’s really a good opportunity to be here and visit with him and his district 

2

and to commend you for a wise selection in picking him to be your 

Congressman. 

The success of education reform efforts is increasingly seen as directly dependent on the quality of classroom instruction and ensuring the quality of America’s 3.2 million teachers is an essential 

part of providing an excellent education to all our children. A growing number of studies provide conclusive evidence that teacher 

quality is the primary school related factor affecting student 

achievement. 

We held a series of hearings a couple of years ago when we were 

talking about teacher quality and I remember a big argument 

about school class size was very important. But as we held those 

hearings, I asked every one of the witnesses after each of those 

hearings what was the most important part of education. Of course 

the first thing is the parent. But No. 2 was a quality teacher and 

it was most important to have, more important than the class size, 

was the quality of teacher. 

Students who are taught by effective and competent teachers 

excel quickly, while those who are assigned to the least effective 

teachers lag behind and often never catch up. 

The bipartisan No Child Left Behind law asks each state, in exchange for billions of dollars in Federal teacher quality aid, to develop and implement a plan to place a highly qualified teacher in 

every public classroom by the close of the 2005-2006 school year. 

Since No Child Left Behind was enacted more than 2 years ago, 

Congress and President Bush have continued to provide record 

teacher quality aid to states and local school districts, at levels far 

higher than provided under the previous Administration. Federal 

teacher quality aid has been increased by more than 35 percent 

under President Bush who requested nearly 3 billion dollars in annual teacher quality funding for states and teachers in his 2005 

budget request to Congress, compared with just $787 million provided under President Clinton’s final budget. 

In addition, President Bush and Congress have taken numerous 

steps since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act to help 

teachers, local educational agencies, and states meet the law’s 

highly qualified teacher provisions and improve our nation’s teaching force. 

To provide incentives for good teachers to remain in the teaching 

profession, President Bush and congressional Republicans in 2002 

enacted legislation allowing teachers to take a $250 tax deduction 

when they pay money out of their own pockets for classroom expenses, such as crayons and books. We are currently working to expand this so-called ‘‘Crayola Credit’’ to $400 or more. 

During the 108th Congress, the House passed legislation to more 

than triple the amount of Federal student loan forgiveness available to highly qualified reading specialists and math, science and 

special education teachers who commit to teaching in high-need 

schools for 5 years. 

The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act would increase maximum Federal loan forgiveness for such teachers from $5,000 to 

$17,500. 

In 2003, the House also passed legislation to strengthen teachertraining programs at America’s colleges. 

3

The Ready to Teach Act would reauthorize and strengthen teacher-training programs under the Higher Education Act to ensure tomorrow’s highly qualified teachers are prepared to meet the needs 

of the nation’s students. 

It is important to note that members of the Committee reintroduced these bills last week as part of a competitiveness package 

aimed at helping teachers receive quality training they need to improve student achievement. 

Today, the Subcommittee continues its focus on teachers, but we 

are looking at a different issue. The purposes of today’s hearings 

are to discuss the need for teacher background checks and to examine the provisions of H.R. 2649, the Schools Safely Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act of 2003. 

Mr. Porter will talk more about his legislation, but I want to 

thank him for his leadership on this issue and his efforts to help 

ensure that our nation’s students are safe in the classroom. 

I would like to thank everyone for attending today and I’d especially like to thank the witnesses for their participation. I look forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman McKeon follows:]

Statement of Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, Chairman, Subcommittee on 21st 

Century Competitiveness, Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Good morning. I’d like to welcome each of you to our hearing today to discuss the 

need for teacher background checks and to examine the provisions of H.R. 2649, the 

Schools Safely Acquiring Faculty Excellence of 2003, a bill that was introduced by 

my colleague—Congressman Porter—to help keep children safe in the classroom. 

The success of education reform efforts is increasingly seen as directly dependent 

on the quality of classroom instruction, and ensuring the quality of America’s 3.2 

million teachers is an essential part of providing an excellent education to all our 

children. A growing number of studies provide conclusive evidence that teacher 

quality is the primary school-related factor affecting student achievement. Students 

who are taught by effective and competent teachers excel quickly, while those who 

are assigned to the least effective teachers lag behind and often never catch up. 

The bipartisan No Child Left Behind law asks each state—in exchange for billions 

of dollars in federal teacher quality aid—to develop and implement a plan to place 

a highly qualified teacher in every public classroom by the close of the 2005–2006 

school year. 

Since No Child Left Behind was enacted more than two years ago, Congress and 

President Bush have continued to provide record teacher quality aid to states and 

local school districts, at levels far higher than provided under the previous Administration. Federal teacher quality aid has been increased by more than 35 percent 

under President Bush, who requested nearly three billion dollars in annual teacher 

quality funding for states and teachers in his 2005 budget request to Congress—

compared with just $787 million provided under President Clinton’s final budget. 

In addition, President Bush and Congress have taken numerous steps since the 

enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act to help teachers, local educational agencies, and states meet the law’s highly qualified teacher provisions and improve our 

nation’s teaching force. 

To provide incentives for good teachers to remain in the teaching profession, 

President Bush and congressional Republicans in 2002 enacted legislation allowing 

teachers to take a $250 tax deduction when they pay money out of their own pockets 

for classroom expenses, such as crayons and books. We are currently working to expand this so-called ‘‘Crayola Credit’’ to $400 or more. 

During the 108th Congress, the House passed legislation to more than triple the 

amount of federal student loan forgiveness available to highly qualified reading specialists and math, science, and special education teachers who commit to teaching 

in high-need schools for five years. The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act 

would increase maximum federal loan forgiveness for such teachers from $5,000 to 

$17,500. 

In 2003, the House also passed legislation to strengthen teacher-training programs at America’s colleges. The Ready to Teach Act would reauthorize and 

4

strengthen teacher-training programs under the Higher Education Act to ensure tomorrow’s highly qualified teachers are prepared to meet the needs of the nation’s 

students. 

It is important to note that members of the Committee re-introduced these bills 

last week as part of a competitiveness package aimed at helping teachers receive 

quality training they need to improve student achievement. 

Today, the Subcommittee continues its focus on teachers—but we are looking at 

a different issue. The purposes of today’s hearing are to discuss the need for teacher 

background checks and to examine the provisions of H.R. 2649, the Schools Safely 

Acquiring Faculty Excellence of 2003. 

Mr. Porter will talk more about his legislation—but I want to thank him for his 

leadership on this issue and his efforts to help ensure that our nation’s students 

are safe in the classroom. 

We have a distinguished panel of witnesses for today’s hearing. I would like to 

thank each of you for your appearance before the Subcommittee and I look forward 

to your testimony. 

Chairman MCKEON. I would now like to recognize my colleague 

on the Education and Workforce Committee and our host in his 

congressional district, Mr. Porter, for his opening statement and to 

introduce our distinguished panel of witness. Mr. Porter. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JON C. PORTER, A REPRESENTTIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I tell you, it’s a real 

honor to have the Committee with us today and I appreciate your 

support for Nevada. Coming from our smaller brother-sister state 

of California, but more importantly I understand quite well the impacts of growth in Nevada, as do you, with the growth and impacts 

on education in California. So we appreciate very much your being 

here with the Committee. 

When I first heard about the Committee on 21st Century Competitiveness, I said what kind of Committee is that? And Mr. 

McKeon made it clear to me that I would find it would be one of 

the most effective Committees in the House working with education, with children, with higher education, and I tell you it’s an 

honor to serve on the Committee and to serve on Education Workforce. There is not a larger need in Nevada than education taking 

care of our kids, so I appreciate your being here and what the Committee does. 

We have a number of speakers this morning and I will just introduce you briefly, but then before you speak I’ll go more in-depth. 

First, an individual that really is or should be taking credit for 

this hearing here today. The idea of what we could do to make sure 

that we have teachers that are—that we can entrust our children 

with really came from. 

Dr. Rice, George Ann Rice, who is here this morning, so first let 

me just welcome and thank you, Doctor, for your ideas and suggestions. 

Another good friend, Ms. Carol Lark, is here, Principal of Elementary School C.P. Squires, and with her, sitting to her left, is 

Mrs. DJ Stutz, who is President of the Nevada PTA. So thank you 

very much for being here. 

Let’s talk a little bit about Nevada and some of the impacts, and 

I’m talking to the experts right here, but if I could summarize for 

the Committee and for the record, we are one of the fastest growing 

communities, of course, in the country. Five, six, 7,000 people a 

5

month moving into Nevada. Of course that varies from month to 

month. A net of possibly 5- or 6,000 people when you take those 

that decide to relocate maybe to California or some other place, but 

literally major impacts on our community from infrastructure of 

streets, highways, air quality, but health care also falls into those 

areas of challenges, but can you imagine the impact on education 

with the size of growth that we have? 

We need schools for 15- to 16,000 new students a year, and I 

guess from a side note I was sharing this challenge with one of my 

colleagues from Virginia the other day, and we were kind of doing 

a one upmanship on education on who had the most challenges and 

the member said, well, you know, I have 1500 new students a year 

moving into my school district, and I said, well, we have 15- or 

16,000, and of course the conversation just continued, and all of a 

sudden there was a silence. He looked at me and said, what did 

you say? How many students do you have? And I said 15- or 

16,000. And he said, well, I guess my 1500 really is nowhere compared to your 15- or 16,000. 

And what I’ve been trying to do, and I believe successfully, with 

our delegation who works very well together on educating our colleagues is letting them know the impacts of what this really 

means. 

So not only do we have 15- or 16,000 new students, we need 2-

1/2 schools—Joyce, is that where we are now, 2-1/2 schools a 

month? Two schools a month? Two schools a month. Unheard of. 

And we are actually staying up with that growth and knowing we 

are going to need some additional funding soon for the infrastructure. But that brings us to the discussion today. 

Can you imagine in the private sector having to hire 2,000 or 

2,500 new employees a year? I don’t care what kind of business it 

is, 2,500 new employees a year is a huge project, especially the 

human resource department, but imagine trying to find that many 

people from your community first, and, of course, as a growing 

community, we don’t have enough teachers here locally, so we 

reach out to across the country, but we need 2,000 to 2,500 statewide teachers a year. With that the challenges of recruitment, getting the messages out, selling the community, selling the importance of education in Nevada. And as we have hired outside of Nevada, we’ve learned that as a top recruiter in the country, with 

that comes major challenges. 

And as Nevada is seeking teachers outside of Nevada, we must 

also have the means to determine that none of our faculty have 

pasts that are indicative of behavior that poses a threat to our children. And as a parent myself, of course my kids are now 26 and 

23, but sharing with the district, as I’ve been a member of the state 

Senate and now the Congress, the challenges and the trust that I 

as a parent put in the school district, I trust that as the district 

is hiring new employees, you’re doing everything possible to make 

sure that our children and my children will be safe in the school 

district. But the potential physical and psychological damage that 

a few individuals pose to our children in our education system in 

general requires lawmakers and administrators to act so as to remove all credible threats to the safety of our nation’s children. And 

one of the most common sense actions that we can take is to reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:41 Oct 18, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\93834 EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
6

quire states in some shape or form to share any information on the 

background of these individuals who will come into close contact 

with our kids. 

With the legislation that we’re examining today, and as I mentioned, a lot of credit goes to Dr. Rice, I would require states to partake in a nationwide information sharing system that would provide human resource directors and administrators with the background information that they need to hire highly qualified and 

highly ethical individuals to serve in our schools. 

The National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact, and I’ve 

learned that in Washington we have a lot of titles, a lot of long 

names, but I think it summarizes it well, the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact, signed into law on October 10 of 

1998, established an infrastructure by which states can exchange 

criminal records for non-criminal justice purposes. 

Now, that was in 1998. Unfortunately, only 21 states have currently ratified this compact. While the remaining 29 states still 

have the opportunity to ratify this compact, I believe that we must 

encourage this action with the greatest haste possible. By providing 

a more compelling reason to join the compact, H.R. 2649 would 

close one of the cracks through which potentially harmful individuals might slip. And I know that as Dr. Rice and the balance of 

the panel testify, they will explain how the process works, but I 

think it’s imperative that we hire the best, the brightest, but also 

the most ethically and educated individuals to take care of our children. 

Clark County School District being the sixth largest in the country, and probably rapidly moving in on the fifth, I think should be 

complimented for the job that you’ve done. A tremendous challenge 

before us, and I know that we have individuals moving from all 

over the country, also from here in Nevada, but I’d like to applaud 

the Clark County School District for what they’ve done to stay in 

front of the growth from an infrastructure standpoint, from an education standpoint, and now certainly from hiring teachers. 

So with that I’d like to formally introduce the first speaker on 

the panel, if you don’t mind, Mr. Chairman. 

Our first witness is Dr. George Ann Rice, and Dr. Rice currently 

serves as Associate Superintendent for Clark County Schools in 

Las Vegas, Nevada, a position she has held for over 13 years. Before pursuing an education in the legal field and practicing law in 

California, Dr. Rice served as a teacher and department Chairman 

at Western High School here in Las Vegas. 

The prepared statement of Mr. Porter follows:]

Statement of Hon. Jon C. Porter, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Nevada 

Thank you, Chairman McKeon, for calling this important hearing of the Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness. As we examine my legislation, H.R. 2649, the Schools Safely Acquiring Faculty Excellence 

Act of 2003, I urge the subcommittee to consider the importance of ensuring that 

the environment our children encounter in their schools is as safe as possible. I 

thank our panel of distinguished guests for their insight into the need to ensure student safety and unblemished records of faculty and staff. I appreciate their sacrifice 

of time and their ongoing efforts on behalf of the children of Clark County and Nevada. 

7

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome to this hearing, Dr. George Ann 

Rice, the Associate Superintendent in the Human Resources Division of the Clark 

County School District; Ms. Carol Lark, Principal of the C.P. Squires Elementary 

School; Mr. Ronald Lopez, the Deputy Executive Director of the Clark County Education Association; and Mrs. DJ Stutz, the President of the Nevada State PTA. I 

thank you all for taking the time to share with the committee the needs you perceive for our children in this important matter. I also wish to express the gratitude 

of all Southern Nevadans for the work that you do to increase the educational opportunities of our children. 

As the Clark County School District, the nation’s sixth largest school district, continues to grow at the astonishing rate of 15,000 students per year, the need for 

2,000 new teachers a year poses great difficulties. Forced to seek teachers and other 

staff from outside of Nevada, we must have the means to determine that none of 

our faculty have pasts that are indicative of behavior that poses a threat to our children. The potential physical and psychological damage that these few individuals 

pose to our children and our education system in general requires law makers and 

administrators to act so as to remove all credible threats to the safety of our nation’s students. One of the most common sense actions that we can take is to require 

states to share any information on the background of these individuals who will 

come into close contact with our children. 

The legislation we are examining today would require states to partake in a nation-wide information sharing system that would provide human resources directors 

and administrators with the background information that they need to hire highly 

qualified and highly ethical individuals to serve in our schools. The National Crime 

Prevention and Privacy Compact, signed into law October 10, 1998, established an 

infrastructure by which states can exchange criminal records for non-criminal justice purposes. Unfortunately, only 21 states have currently ratified this compact. 

While the remaining 29 states still have the opportunity to ratify this compact, I 

believe that we must encourage this action with the greatest haste possible. By providing a more compelling reason to join the compact, H.R. 2649 would close one of 

the cracks through which potentially harmful individuals might slip. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for joining me in Las Vegas and for convening 

this panel of witnesses who can help this committee further understand the need 

to protect our children from any individual who might wish them harm. I look forward to working with the committee on this important legislation in the future and 

am anxious to hear the testimony of our four witnesses today. 

Mr. PORTER. So I’d like to welcome again Dr. George Ann Rice, 

and thank you very much, we appreciate your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF DR. GEORGE ANN RICE, ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT, CLARK COUNTY SCHOOLS, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 

Dr. RICE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Porter, and counsel. 

I am George Ann Rice, the Associate Superintendent of the 

Human Resources Division for the Clark County School District. I 

am ultimately responsible for the staffing of all of the positions in 

our district. We have approximately 15,500 teachers, 1,000 administrators, and 9,000 support staff district-wide, plus temporary people and substitutes. 

I am pleased to testify on behalf of the Clark County School District, as Mr. Porter mentioned, the sixth largest district in the 

country, soon to be the fifth largest district. I have to believe that 

I am testifying, however, on behalf of school districts throughout 

the country that are not even aware that this problem exists. 

The Clark County School District, as Mr. Porter has pointed out, 

is a rather unique school district. We are central city school district, a suburban school district, and a rural school district, all in 

one. Our service area of Clark County covers 7,910 square miles, 

which is roughly the size of Connecticut and Delaware put together. We have 289 schools, 197 in Las Vegas, 70 schools in the 

8

surrounding suburban area, and 22 outside the metropolitan area 

in rural Clark County. 

To keep pace with our rapid growth the Clark County School District opens on the average in the past a new school each month. 

We are scheduled to open 14 new schools in August, and since 1986 

we have built 157 new schools. 

Each year we must higher approximately 2,000 new teachers, 

600 of whom are hired due to teacher turnover, the remainder because of our growth and because of our own teacher retirements. 

We have hired approximately 8,000 teachers over the past 5 years 

and project to hire 10,000 more over the next 5 years. 

We have two state universities, UNLV and UNR. We have one 

state college, Nevada State College, which is 2 years old, and also 

a small presence of private preparation programs of private colleges here. During the very best years, in combination they produce 

approximately 600 of the 2,000 teachers that we need each year. 

We are forced to go to other states to recruit the remaining 1,400 

teachers we require each year. Recruiting for the 2004-2005 school 

year, we have made 166 trips out of the state and held 107 full 

days of interviewing right here on our own site. We require that 

every person that we hire, and volunteers, be fingerprinted. These 

fingerprints of sent through our own school police through the Nevada Central Crime Repository, our Nevada Highway Patrol, to the 

FBI. We have believed all of these years that when we received a 

copy of an FBI report, that we had the candidate’s complete arrest 

and conviction history from all states. I think all school districts 

are under that assumption. We recently learned that not all states 

submit their criminal records to the FBI for non-criminal justice 

purposes such as employment inquiries by school districts. 

At first we considered eliminating our recruiting from any state 

that had not released these records. However, we realized that this 

action would be meaningless because of the mobility of our population in the United States. We must have access to records from 

all states. 

All school districts are hiring teachers, administrators and support staff who will spend hours each today working with, supervising, and guiding children. These same people will each day be 

alone with these children. It is imperative that school districts be 

aware of any and all contacts candidates have had with any law 

enforcement agencies for any felony, for any arrest that involves violence, controlled substances, child abuse, sexual misconduct, and 

so on. 

If the school districts around the country were aware of the limited nature of the information they are being given from their FBI 

inquiries, they would all be here, I’m sure, en masse to testify. 

I might tell you other things that we do on our application, we 

ask the candidates approximately 20 questions regarding any contact that they have had with law enforcement that’s self reporting. 

Then we ask every reference to whom we send professional references inquiries concerning their professional competence, and on 

those inquiries we will also list the very same question, do you 

have any reason to believe, and then we list that this person has 

ever been arrested, charged or convicted of a felony of a violence 

related offense, of a sex related offense, of a domestic or violence 

9

related and also drug-related offense. We ask every applicant, 

every reference, but it is the FBI reports that we were relying upon 

to ensure that we were getting accurate information. 

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to address you on 

this critical bill and to suggest that if you’re looking at things that 

might enable the bill to have—to have better success with larger 

groups within the Congress, we might look at a different penalty 

or a modification of the penalty for not complying. It might be that 

we will have opposition on tying compliance with educational funding where if there was maybe a different penalty, that those people 

would come along. 

Also, I think that in today’s atmosphere, it might be good to consider the suspicion part because there will be a lot of people who 

will step up against that, and I would certainly, I think we all 

would certainly see, hate to see this bill maybe doomed because of 

those things that really do not—are not part of the guts of the bill, 

which is letting us know about those arrest charges and convictions. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. 

Chairman MCKEON. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Rice follows:]

Statement of Dr. George Ann Rice, Associate Superintendent, Human 

Resources Division, Clark County Schools, Las Vegas, Nevada 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. 

I am Dr. George Ann Rice, the Associate Superintendent of the Human Resources 

Division for the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am ultimately 

responsible for staffing the positions in our district. We have approximately 15,000 

teachers, 1,000 administrators, and 9,000 support staff employees district-wide, plus 

temporary people and substitutes. 

I am pleased to testify today on behalf of the Clark County School District, the 

6th largest district in the country, soon to be the 5th largest. I have to believe that 

I am testifying on behalf of school districts throughout the country, which are not 

even aware that this problem exists. 

The Clark County School District is a rather unique school system. We are a central city school system, a suburban school system, and a rural school system all in 

one. Our service area of Clark County covers 7,910 square miles, which is roughly 

the size of Connecticut and Delaware combined. We have 289 schools: 197 in the 

Las Vegas, 70 schools in the surrounding suburban area, and 22 schools outside the 

metropolitan area in rural Clark County. 

To keep pace with our rapid growth, the Clark County School District opens the 

average of a new school EACH MONTH. We are scheduled to open 14 new schools 

in August. Since 1986, we have built 157 new schools. 

Each year, we must hire approximately 2000 new teachers—only 600 of whom are 

hired due to teacher turnover, the remainder because of our growth and our own 

teacher retirements. We have hired 8,000 new teachers over the last 5 years, and 

project to hire 10,000 new teachers over the next 5 years. 

We have two State universities UNLV and UNR. We have one state college, Nevada State College, which is two years old and also a small presence of private 

teacher preparation programs. During the very best years, they produce in combination only 600 of the 2000 teachers we need each year. 

We must go to other states to recruit the remaining 1400 teachers we require 

each year. Recruiting for the 2004–2005 school year, we have made 166 trips out 

of state and held 107 full days of interviewing on this site. We require that every 

person we hire be fingerprinted. These fingerprints are sent through our school police through the Nevada Central Crime Repository (Nevada Highway Patrol) to the 

FBI. We have believed that when we receive a copy of the FBI report that we have 

a candidate’s complete arrest and conviction history from all states. 

We recently learned that not all States submit their criminal records to the FBI 

for non-criminal justices purposes; such as employment inquiries by school districts. 

At first, we considered eliminating from our recruiting schedule any state that 

has not released its records. However, we realized that action would be meaningless 

10

because of the mobility of our population in the United States. We must be able to 

access these records from all states. 

All school districts are hiring teachers, administrators, and support staff who will 

send hours each day time working with, supervising, and guiding children. These 

same people will each day be alone with those children. It is imperative that school 

districts be aware of any and all contacts candidates have had with any law enforcement agencies for any felony, or any arrest, that involves violence, a controlled substance, child abuse, and sexual misconduct and/or abuse. 

If schools districts around the country were aware of the limited nature of the information they are receiving from their FBI inquiries, they would all be here today 

eager to testify. 

Thank you for the opportunity to address you on this critical bill. 

Chairman MCKEON. If you could introduce our next— 

Mr. PORTER. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’d also like to enter for the record a copy of some newspaper articles, without objection, from the Chairman, throughout the Las 

Vegas area, on some challenges that we’ve had here locally, for the 

record. Thank you. 

Chairman MCKEON. No objection. So ordered. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. 

[The information referred to has been retained in the Committee’s official files.] 

Mr. PORTER. Next we have Miss Carol Lark. Ms. Lark currently 

serves as Principal of C.P. Squires Elementary School in North Las 

Vegas, Nevada. A former recruiter of teachers for Clark County 

schools, Miss Lark has used her public relations skills to build beneficial partnerships with businesses and community organizations. 

With Blue Cross/Blue Shield funding, Miss Lark administered a 

pilot program that provided free onsite dental care to more than a 

thousand children. 

We could list another hundred different successes of Ms. Lark, 

who was Principal of the Year last year, but please welcome Ms. 

Lark. 

Thank you very much. 

STATEMENT OF CAROL LARK, PRINCIPAL, C.P. SQUIRES 

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 

Ms. LARK. Thank you very much. 

It is indeed an honor to address this important legislative Committee. My name is Carol Lark, and I am principal of an elementary school here in North Las Vegas, Nevada. I have 945 students; 

91 percent are on free and reduced lunch, 86 percent of our children are Hispanic. We are a full Title 1 School, and I wish to take 

a moment just to tell you how much we appreciate the funds you 

do provide to our Title Schools. 

I am here today to testify on behalf of the Schools Safely Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act of 2003. Only recently did I learn that 

only 21 states have ratified the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact. In all honesty, I was shocked. I’ve been an administrator in Nevada for the past 14 years, and I’ve always assumed 

that when prospective teachers were fingerprinted, we could be rest 

assured that at the very least they did not come to us with felonies 

on their records. Unfortunately, interviews and reference checks 

will often not reveal such information. Professionals are becoming 

more and more reluctant to share negative information about emVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:41 Oct 18, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\93834 EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
11

ployees out of fear of being sued. Fingerprinting was the one objective factual bit of information that we should have access to when 

selecting teachers. 

A few years ago I spent 7 days in an arbitration attempting to 

remove a teacher based on performance alone. 

When the arbitrator asked me if I had any last words, I told him 

that if he were to reverse my decision, then he should have to put 

his own child or his own grandchild in that classroom. And I think 

the same principle applies here. 

The only plausible reason that I can imagine for not cooperating 

must be financial. I am sure that entering the data would require 

a certain amount of manpower and womanpower. But nevertheless, 

I doubt you could find a taxpayer alive that would not support this 

legislation. I would much prefer to dodge potholes in the road than 

allow sexual predators in my child’s classroom. 

Six years ago, when I moved to my at-risk school, I hired 23 

teachers from all over the country, and I have hired many more 

since. I knew that each one of them had to be fingerprinted, and 

I felt secure in believing that they had no criminal record. To find 

out now that I was wrong is very disturbing. 

Clark County is presently the sixth largest district in the Nation 

and we probably have teachers from every state in the union. We 

are growing so fast that we are constantly prioritizing our priorities, but never have we questioned the importance of cooperating 

with the FBI in an area as serious as our children’s safety. 

I urge you to pass this legislation as quickly as possible. Our 

children’s safety is at stake. If we are to leave No Child Left Behind, let us address their safety as well as their academic achievement. 

I thank you for this opportunity to testify. 

Chairman MCKEON. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lark follows:]

Statement of Carol Lark, Principal, C.P. Squires Elementary, North Las 

Vegas, Nevada 

It is indeed an honor to address this important legislative body. My name is Carol 

Lark and I am Principal of an elementary school in N. Las Vegas, Nevada. I have 

945 students and we are 91% free and reduced lunch and 86% Hispanic. We are 

a full Title 1 School and we truly appreciate the funds provided to Title 1 schools. 

I am here today to testify on behalf of the ‘‘Schools Safely Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act of 2003’’. Only recently did I learn that only 16 states have ratified the 

National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact. In all honesty, I was shocked. I 

have been an administrator in Nevada for the past 14 years and I have always assumed that when prospective teachers were fingerprinted, we could rest assured 

that at the very least, they did not come to us with a felony on their records. Unfortunately, interviews and reference checks will often not reveal such information. 

Professionals are becoming more and more reluctant to share negative information 

about employees out of fear of being sued. Fingerprinting is the one objective, factual bit of information that we should have access to when selecting teachers. 

A few years ago I spent seven days in an arbitration attempting to remove a 

teacher based on performance alone. When the arbitrator asked me if I had any last 

comments, I told him that if he were to reverse my decision, and keep that teacher 

in the classroom, then he should have to put his own child, or his grandchild in that 

classroom. The same principle applies here. 

The only plausible reason that I can imagine for not cooperating, must be financial. I am sure that entering the data would require a certain amount of manpower. 

Nevertheless, I doubt that you could find a taxpayer alive that would not support 

this legislation. I would much prefer to dodge potholes in the road, than allow sexual predators in my child’s classroom. 

12

Six years ago, when I moved to my at-risk school, I hired 23 teachers from all 

over the country and I have hired many more since then. I knew that each of them 

had to be fingerprinted, and I felt secure in believing that they had no criminal 

record. To find out now, that I was wrong, is very disturbing. 

Clark County is presently the sixth largest district in the nation and we probably 

have teachers from every state in the union. We are growing so fast that we are 

constantly prioritizing our priorities, but never have we questioned the importance 

of cooperating with the FBI in an area as serious as our children’s safety. 

I urge you to pass this legislation as quickly as possible. Our children’s safety is 

at stake. If we are to leave No Child Left Behind, let us address their safety and 

as well as their academic achievement. I thank you for this opportunity to testify. 

Chairman MCKEON. Mr. Porter. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Next we have Mrs. Stutz. Mrs. Stutz serves as President of the 

Nevada State PTA, is a member of the board of the National PTA. 

In addition to her more than two decades serving with the PTA, 

Mrs. Stutz works for the Clark County Parenting Project and 

teaches early morning seminary classes. 

Also, a side note, there isn’t anyone involved in the community 

like Mrs. Stutz. We appreciate everything you’ve done all these 

years, and fully two decades you’ve touched and changed a lot of 

lives. So thank you very much, and we appreciate you being here 

this morning. 

STATEMENT OF DJ STUTZ, PRESIDENT, NEVADA STATE PTA, 

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 

Ms. STUTZ. Thank you very much, and I too thank you for allowing me the time to provide you some information and points of view 

from the prospective of PTA. Nationally, PTA represents almost 6 

million members, all of whom are concerned with the welfare and 

education of our nation’s children. And one of the five purposes of 

this organization is to secure adequate laws for the care and protection of children and youth. 

On a side note, just last January representatives from all 54 

Congresses of National PTA identified making our children competitive in the 21st Century as one of the top three priorities for 

PTA nationally, and so I am excited about the work that your Committee does. 

As a national organization, we are very serious about properly 

representing the voice of our membership. Our motto is ‘‘every 

child, one voice’’ and it is out of our belief in this motto that we 

work diligently with our membership as we develop the positions 

that we take. It was only after much research, deliberation, and finally a vote on our convention floor by the delegates of this organization that the resolution that I have attached to this statement 

was accepted as an official position of National PTA. And the name 

of that resolution is Background Checks on Teachers. 

As you may note, it is our position, supported by our vast membership, that background checks on teachers before the issuance or 

renewing of a license or permit be completed by the appropriate 

agencies. Our resolution also states that we encourage the cooperation between Treasury Departments and Teacher Licensing agencies in the investigation of background checks on teachers. Let me 

tell you how pleased we are to see that this important issue has 

come to the forefront of your Committee. 

13

On a personal note, as the mother of four, grandmother of two, 

soon to be three, and the aunt of 67 children, I have to admit that 

I—and I have to admit that I’ve lost track of how many great 

grandnieces and nephews that I have strewn throughout this great 

nation, I have a huge personal investment in the education process 

and the protection of our most precious national treasure, our children. It has been with great dismay that I have heard the news 

reporting on the molestation of children by teachers or personnel 

in the school district where my children and many of my nieces and 

nephews attend school. It is even more alarming when the reports 

state that this person has had a history of such behavior in other 

states that was not reported during the background checks. In my 

mind, these were preventable incidences. Every child, each precious 

face that we see as a victim of such a horrific crime, deserves the 

assurance that such things will never happen again, not to them, 

not to anyone else. I am mournful that any of these incidences 

should occur. And while I realize that we realistically cannot prevent such—all such outrages from transpiring, it is imperative that 

we as a society do all that we can to responsibly protect our nation’s children from such a travesty. 

That being said, I would like to draw attention to three issues 

that I believe could improve this bill. The first is in Section 3, it’s 

on page 3, lines 22 and 23, letter A. ‘‘The identity of each individual so arrested, charged or convicted.’’ My concern with this 

clause is that there are many individuals who are arrested and 

charged with a crime but never convicted. History is resplendent 

with examples of people falsely accused, people who have had to 

leave their homes and careers due to the repercussions of false accusations or misunderstandings. And I believe that the standard of 

‘‘innocent until proven guilty’’ is a standard worthy of this great 

country. 

Secondly, I’m concerned by Section 3 which is on page 3, lines 

24 and 25, identified by letter B, ‘‘The identity of each individual 

under suspicion of such an offense.’’ This subsection brings my concerns just stated to a new level. 

Now, not only do you not have to be convicted, charged or even 

arrested, but merely the suspicion of misconduct would scar a 

record. I’m aware, as students are, that a cry of foul can turn the 

tables very quickly for a teacher deemed as unfair, tough, or just 

unliked. Just as it is important to have each concern fully investigated, it is also important to protect the ability of an individual 

to care and provide for his or her family if suspicions turned out 

to be unfounded. 

The final concern is that I don’t see an appeals process should 

an unfavorable report be found. For example, my son in-law is 

named Michael Smith. The phone book tells me that there are 41 

Michael Smiths with published phone numbers in Clark County 

alone. Confused identity being only one of a plethora of possibilities 

of a wrongly unfavorable report, there must be some mechanism 

for appeal. 

I thank you for bringing this bill forward. Quite honestly, I’ve 

been deeply saddened as I have had to explain to my children, boys 

and girls alike, to watch for signs of improper advances from all 

kinds of adults who should be guarding them from such. While I 

14

believe that even if this bill passes, the need for such warnings will 

still exist, I am hopeful that we can find our way to a society that 

honors, cherishes, and treasures the only asset that truly matters 

in this nation, or in the world for that matter, our children. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Stutz follows:]

Statement of DJ Stutz, President, Nevada PTA, Member, National PTA 

Board of Directors 

I thank you for allowing me the time to provide you information and points of 

view from the perspective of PTA. Nationally, PTA represents almost 6 million 

members, all of whom are concerned about the welfare and education of our nation’s 

children. One of the five purposes of this organization is ‘‘To secure adequate laws 

for the care and protection of children and youth.’’

As a national organization, we are very serious about properly representing the 

voice of our membership. Our motto is ‘‘every child, one voice.’’ It is out of our belief 

in this motto that we work diligently with our membership as we develop the positions that we take. It was only after much research, deliberation, and finally a vote 

on our convention floor by the delegates of this organization that the resolution I 

have attached to this statement was accepted as an official position. 

As you may note, it is our position, supported by our vast membership, that background checks on teachers before the issuance or renewing of a license or permit. . . 

be completed by the appropriate agencies. Our resolution also states that we ‘‘encourage the cooperation between Treasury Departments and Teacher Licensing 

agencies in the investigation of background checks on teachers.’’ Let me tell you how 

pleased we are to see this important issue come to the forefront of your committee. 

On a personal note, as the mother of four, grandmother of two soon to be three, 

and the aunt of 67, and I have to admit that I’ve lost track of how many grand 

nieces and nephews I have strewn throughout this great nation. Therefore, I have 

a huge personal investment in the education process and the protection of our most 

precious national treasure, our children. It has been with great dismay that I have 

heard the news reporting on the molestation of children by teachers or personnel 

in the school district where my children and many of my nieces and nephews attend 

school. It is even more alarming when the reports state that this person has a history of such behavior in other states that was not reported during the background 

checks. In my mind, these were preventable incidences. Every child, each precious 

face that we see as a victim of such a horrific crime, deserves the assurance that 

such things will never happen again. Not to them, not to anyone else. I am mournful that any of these incidences should ever occur. While I realize that we realistically cannot prevent all such outrages from transpiring, it is imperative that we, 

as a society, do all that we can to responsibly protect our nation’s children from this 

travesty. 

That being said, I would like to draw attention to three issues that I believe need 

to be changed to improve the bill. The first is in Section 3, page 3, lines 22 and 

23: ‘‘(A) the identity of each individual so arrested, charged, or convicted.’’ My concern with this clause is that there are many individuals who are arrested and 

charged with a crime, but never convicted. History is resplendent with examples of 

people falsely accused ‘‘people who have had to leave their homes and careers due 

to repercussions of these false accusations or misunderstandings. I believe the 

standard of ‘‘innocent until proven guilty’’ is a standard worthy of this great country. 

Secondly, I am concerned by Section 3, page 3, lines 24 and 25: ‘‘(B) the identity 

of each individual under suspicion for such an offense.’’ This subsection brings my 

concerns just stated to a new level. Now, not only do you not have to be convicted, 

charged, or even arrested, but merely the suspicion of misconduct would scar a 

record. I am aware, as are students, that a cry of foul can turn the tables very 

quickly for a teacher deemed as unfair, tough, or just unliked. Just as it is important to have each concern fully investigated, it is also important to protect the ability of an individual to care and provide for his or her family if suspicions turn out 

to be unfounded. 

The final concern is that I do not see any appeals process, should an unfavorable 

report be returned. For example, my son-in-law is named Michael Smith. The phone 

book tells me that there are 41 Michael Smiths with published phone numbers in 

Clark County alone. Confused identity being only one of a plethora of possibilities 

of a wrongly unfavorable report, there must be some mechanism for appeal. 

15

I thank you for bringing this bill forward. Quite honestly, I have been deeply saddened as I have had to explain to my children, boys and girls alike, to watch for 

signs of improper advances from all kinds of adults who should be guarding them 

from such. While I believe that even if this bill passes, the need for such warnings 

will still exist, I am hopeful that we can find our way to a society that honors, cherishes, and treasures the only asset that truly matters in this nation, or in the world 

for that matter, our children. 

Chairman MCKEON. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you very 

much. 7,900 square miles, about the size of Connecticut and Delaware. I was in Delaware last weekend giving a graduation speech, 

and I was talking to some of the people there and they said it’s 

about a 2-hour drive from top to bottom, and I thought, my district 

goes from north LA County to above Bridgeport. It comes to Nevada. So we’re neighbors, and that’s why it’s good to be here with 

you, but our district from top to bottom is about 450 miles and a 

couple of hundred miles east to west, and I come from the fastest 

growing part of LA County, Santa Clarita, and I thought we were, 

you know, we were having real growth problems because we had 

to add a few schools. We are nowhere near what you’re facing here. 

Then I go to the north, which is very rural, and have Inyo County, and we have a problem there just trying to get enough children 

to fill the schools. We have a school that was built for a hundred 

kids, we have 60 kids. We have 500 children in one school district 

spread over about 3,500 square miles. Very difficult. So I see very 

rural and I see very, very rapid growth in a much denser population. So I think I understand a little of what you’re going through 

in your school district. 

I am really, really glad that I’m here today and I’ve had a chance 

to hear this testimony because, you know, in Congress we have 435 

members in the House of Representatives, we represent all kinds 

of districts, and we get involved in our particular subject, and some 

of us become quite familiar with—like I chair this Subcommittee 

on higher education, and I’ve really gotten involved over the 12 

years I’ve been in Congress in those issues, but this is something 

I’ve never even heard about until today, and I was on a school 

board for 9 years before coming to Congress, and I guess I just took 

for granted that we were able to do background checks. 

Although I was kind of questioning how you’re able to ask all 

these questions because I come from a business background and 

I’ve hired people, and I know that you can only ask—legally now 

we can’t ask questions really except ‘‘Are you alive?’’ ‘‘Will you perhaps show up if we hire you?’’ I mean, it’s so vague on what you 

really can ask people that I wasn’t aware that you were able to ask 

all of these kinds of questions when you hire someone. 

Can you explain how that works? 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, there has 

been case law in our state that says when people work directly 

with children, that we are able to ask these questions. 

Chairman MCKEON. That’s just a state law. 

Dr. RICE. There is case law in our state and so our questions 

have been approved by our legal department and there are about 

20 of them. 

Now, we don’t, one of the things that we cannot do is make a 

definite decision just on the basis of finding that out. We have to 

16

look at the overall application. And what we also do is ask anyone 

who on that application indicates that there has been an arrest, 

you know, a charge and/or, or and a conviction, we ask even on an 

arrest, you may give us an explanation, give us a copy of the arrest 

documentation, give us a copy of the court disposition, and give us 

your explanation. 

So by that same case law I can’t make a decision solely on the 

basis of finding that out but I may look at the entire application 

including that information. 

Chairman MCKEON. Well, I have six children and I have 26 

grandchildren, and I’ve led a pretty sheltered life. 

I mean, I’ve heard things in the last few years, or you watch TV 

and you see different episodes of, you know, they portray real life, 

and you find out about sexual predators and sexual molesters, and 

I just, I really didn’t know that went on, and, I mean, until—when 

our children were young, I wasn’t even aware of these kind of 

things. But now we have a granddaughter staying with us, she 

came Saturday, she’ll be with us, a 10-year-old little, pretty little 

girl that will be with us for a week, and our bedroom is upstairs 

and we have a guest bedroom downstairs where she’s staying, and 

I was helping my wife make the bed, and I said, ‘‘You think she’ll 

be safe down here? You know, this is a ground level. Somebody 

could break in one of these windows.’’ I mean, that is something 

that years ago I never even would have thought of, and then we 

figured, well, nobody will know she’s here, you know, we’re probably OK, but that’s—it’s a scary thing that we have to even think 

about things like that, but, you know, we’ve seen things where people have been stolen right from their home, right when they have 

a sister in the room with them. I mean, we live in some really 

tough times, so I again want to commend Mr. Porter for bringing 

this legislation and for you for being here to testify today. 

And I think you’ve given us some real good, some real good additions I think that could be made, changes that could be made in 

the legislation. And that’s the process. That’s why we have hearings, is to see how we can look at the proposals, if there are ways 

that we can improve them, and also to get some publicity so we can 

get information out so we start building support and groundwork 

for these. 

I think the comment was made, why don’t we have something 

like this already and why would it be so hard to get something like 

this passed. Well, out of the 435 members in the House of Representatives I know that there will be—there is always somebody 

that is opposed to something. That’s just the way it is works. And 

that’s how it should work. That’s the system. And so it takes—it’s 

difficult getting things passed. Even things that you would think 

that nobody would oppose, you’ll find that there will be some people that—on the other side that, why should we take away people’s 

privacy? Why don’t we protect people from these kind of things. 

But my personal feeling is I would protect the children over anything else, and I think of our grandchildren, I think of your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, all children that we send to 

school and expect that there they would be protected and kept from 

harm and then find that maybe we’re sending them into harms 

17

way. That’s something that really, really concerns me, and I commend you for moving on this. 

Let me ask, what is the typical time period for background 

checks on a teacher that you’re hiring. 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, what happens is we send it to—through 

our school police, and they send it to the Central Crime Repository, 

and then it’s sent to the FBI, and approximately 3 months, there’s 

a 3-month lag time. 

So when we’re making offers, we begin in December, sometimes 

even earlier, making offers for the following year, and what we require is that fingerprint cards be sent back with the acceptance of 

our offer trying to get a jump on that 3-month period. 

We also require that all student teachers coming into our schools 

and all practicum students coming into our schools to observe also 

be fingerprinted in addition to volunteer coaches and people like 

that. 

Chairman MCKEON. You make the offer before you get the fingerprint. 

Dr. RICE. What we do is make the offer, and we will not—we 

don’t accept the offer in most cases without the fingerprint card, 

and those fingerprint cards have to come back through an authorized police agency. 

Sometimes the people will send back the offer and then we have 

to scamper in order to get the fingerprint, you know, the fingerprints. 

Last year our Legislature did not adjourn and did not pass our 

funding until the end of July. We were hiring 800 teachers after 

the end of July. That did create a problem for us as far as that lag 

time, but normally we get as many of those as we possibly can as 

early in the season as we possibly can. 

Chairman MCKEON. Do you think this legislation would increase 

that lag time, would be—would exacerbate the problem. 

Dr. RICE. I am—Mr. Chairman, I am confident that with the 

technology that is available to us, that that should not be a problem. And I would say that if it were a problem, it would certainly 

be worth the while of the entire country to hire additional people, 

or even to buy additional computers, in order to allow this to happen. 

I can’t believe that we have a situation in 2004 where we’re testifying that we need this. It seems like it should have been here in 

1000 rather than, you know, in 2004. So even if it did exacerbate 

the problem, we need to find solutions, because this has to be 

passed. 

Chairman MCKEON. I would think that when you stick your 

credit card in to buy gasoline and they can authorize it that quickly, we should be able to—the technology is there that we should be 

able to solve that problem. 

Thank you very much. Mr. Porter. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

When I first heard about the problem, I think it was probably 

Mitch Fox, I think Mitch has left the room, but Mitch told me I 

had to get a hold of Dr. Rice as soon as possible because George 

Ann had an idea and a problem. I’ll be honest with you, I was 

18

shocked, I was shocked that we weren’t able to get the proper information to check on teachers. 

Now, in fairness, we have some great teachers and we have phenomenal teachers that have hearts of gold and go the extra mile 

and invest in the classroom and invest in the kids, but there are 

a few out there slipping between the cracks, and again, as a parent, I was shocked that we didn’t have some check and balance. 

Dr. Rice, explain to me and for the Committee the dollars. It 

costs what, 70, $80 or something per check, isn’t it pretty reasonable. 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Porter, I believe it costs around 40, 

$45 for the FBI and for the Central Crime Repository, that’s how 

much, and we even take that from the teacher’s salary over an extended period of time so it is not a burden. 

Oh, I had an important point and it’s gone. 

Mr. PORTER. So if I may help you a moment, the $45 that is paid 

for by the applicant, by the teacher themselves, but it’s over a period of time. 

Dr. RICE. That is correct. 

Mr. PORTER. So the actual hard cost to the district is really minimal other than a staff time, which you do it electronically, or do 

you submit it through the mail, or how do you submit the request. 

Dr. RICE. We submit it. We had the—we’re buying, and we 

bought a number of them already, the electronic, where you put 

your hand on the glass and it’s sent electronically, but we also still 

receive the manual ones because two thirds of our teachers, actually three quarters or 70 percent of our teachers are actually coming from out of state, so however we’re able to get those fingerprints, and most of the time of course it would be by card, by actual 

rolling of the prints, but here locally we do it by the hand on the 

glass. I’m not sure what that technology is called, but that’s the 

way we do it. 

Mr. PORTER. Do you remember if that was expensive, that technology. 

Dr. RICE. I believe that ran about $7,000 per machine. And we 

first saw those in LA, at LA Unified, where they do, as far as I 

know, all of their fingerprinting. I think at the time they had approximately 12 of those machines, and we came back and looked 

into that and thought that that was a much better way to go than 

what we were doing. 

Mr. PORTER. The process is such that it takes about 90 days, did 

you say, to get the information back, is that correct. 

Dr. RICE. That’s approximately what it’s been running. 

Mr. PORTER. And that is prior to using the new hand scan, that’s 

the manual check, or do we know the— 

Dr. RICE. That’s correct, and I’m not sure how long it’s taking 

with the ones that we’re actually sending. 

Now, we can get from our local Metropolitan Police, we can get 

that report turned around in a matter of hours, because we do go 

through our own school police. It’s not like we as a school district 

are submitting directly, it’s through our own school police to the 

Nevada Highway Patrol and then to the FBI. So things are being 

checked along the away. 

19

One of the things a number of years ago that we asked that the 

Nevada Highway Patrol do, and a bill was actually passed, was 

that if there is a check on a school district employee, and the point 

I want to make is the point that the Chairman just made, that 99 

and 9 tenths of our teachers this is not an issue, and I want to 

make that very clear, this is not an issue for 99 and 9 tenths percent of our people, but if even one gets through, then it’s worth the 

time of everybody involved and it’s certainly worth the passage of 

the bill to ensure that even one does not get through. 

But that is submitted, and the bill that we put before the State 

Legislature that was passed is that if any school district in Nevada 

submits fingerprints and there is a later addition or hit to that particular record, that that school district would be so informed. Because unless there is reasonable cause, we can’t later fingerprint 

someone on a regular basis, and so we said if a school district 

checks on any employee or any volunteer and later there is an 

entry into that record concerning the particular criminal offenses 

that we’ve talked about, that the school district would be notified. 

And so that’s an important thing, too, because it may be years 

between fingerprinting and you’re not sure, you know, what’s happened along the way. 

But I think that might be too ambitious, maybe we can come 

back and visit that after this is passed. 

Mr. PORTER. Dr. Rice, in your travels nationally with the different districts, what do you sense is the problem for those that 

don’t comply with this? Why aren’t districts doing this. 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Porter, Mr. Chairman, the way that we even knew 

about this is one of our administrators went to a national conference called NASDAC, and that is the national association that 

deals with licensure. They had an FBI person speak at one of the 

workshops. The FBI person announced to the personnel, school district personnel people who attended that meeting, that he had 

something that would really jolt them. Did they know, and he gave 

this information. And my colleague said that all the air in the room 

disappeared as people gasped, because no one knew this was going 

on. And I do not think that people connect the fact that their legislature has to pass this with the fact that their children, you know, 

that they may have employees, school district employees, teachers, 

support staff, administrators, whose backgrounds have not been 

adequately checked because of the need to pass this law. 

I think there is a disconnect between me and my personnel function and knowing that the state legislature has to pass this so that 

the FBI will release this data for non-judicial purposes. I think 

there’s a disconnect, and our superintendent just stepped down as 

the president of the Council of Great City Schools, and I’ve asked 

him if he can bring it to their attention as well as all of the member districts that this is something that we really all need to rally 

behind because it is so vital. 

Mr. PORTER. I have found that historically when it comes to education, there is a lot of turf. You have local governments that think 

that, well, education isn’t my job so they don’t really always get engaged. And you find maybe even legislatures at times have their 

own thing going, and they assume that the districts are doing everything that they’re supposed to be doing. But I think in the last 

20

couple of years we’re starting to see more of a global approach to 

education. 

I would assume that part of the problem would be that a lot of 

the districts just assume someone else is doing it, maybe someone 

else is checking the background, and not unlike, I guess, applying 

for a credit card, if that individual does not have a record of bad 

credit, that the credit card company or the bank or the business 

isn’t able to track that information. So I guess part of the reason 

for the penalties that were in the language of the bill was to have 

some encouragement other than please, because please really 

hasn’t been working. 

Are there some other areas that you think that we could look at, 

as our guest panelists today, other than from a funding perspective, and again every district in the country needs additional funding, and I understand the concern when we look at reducing funding, but would you have any other ideas to encourage the districts 

to reach out beyond their normal focus and get engaged in this to 

help, you know, protect our children? 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Porter, first of all let me say that 

I think the problem is not that they are assuming someone else is 

doing it, I think they are assuming they are doing it, and when 

they get the fingerprint, the report back, they’re assuming that 

that contains all of the information. 

I think probably, and this would be in combination with the passage of a bill mandating that this happen, I think publicity. I think 

that if school districts became aware through the PTA, through the 

PTO, through the Council of Great City Schools, that this is happening and that their legislature needs to pass this bill if that’s required, or maybe, I don’t know if there’s a possibility that maybe 

this could happen without the passage of that bill, that it—Congress could change its mind and say that this will happen without 

the passage by each state legislature for school districts only, I’m 

not talking about non-judicial causes for Caesars Palace to hire 

people, I’m talking about people who are going to be working with 

children and for children. And so I would say that maybe if there’s 

a possibility of changing that bill or overruling that part as it deals 

with school districts, and then I would say the publicity each of us, 

the PTA, the Council of Great City Schools, the National School 

Principals, Secondary School Principals, all of us need to make sure 

that the word is out that until, unless we can overrule that particular law, that until this is done, we’re not getting complete information, and even if one state doesn’t pass it, then we’re all in jeopardy. 

Mr. PORTER. I would wish for nothing more than to not have to 

have legislation to mandate or/encourage districts, and I would concur from your testimony this morning it may well be that they just 

don’t understand what information they’re not getting, but what do 

you do now then if the individual is applying from a state that’s 

not in the 21? What do you do with that individual. 

Dr. RICE. Not being—Mr. Porter, Mr. Chairman, not being in the 

21 is really—doesn’t solve our problem because like I was saying, 

we just wouldn’t recruit in those 29 states, if that would solve our 

problem, we would only go to recruit in those 21. But we have no 

guarantee that that person that we’re recruiting hasn’t lived in five 

21

other states, four of which do not report, and so it has to be all of 

us in order to close that loophole. 

Mr. PORTER. Yes. 

Ms. LARK. I would just like to add that I believe that you need 

to approach it from all fronts. If, in fact, your school board are your 

policymakers, and your superintendents should be the most knowledgeable in areas of this nature, and they are informing school 

boards, school boards need to, I believe, take some strong action to 

put pressure on state legislators throughout the nation, and there 

are organizations designed to address these kinds of issues, and 

your support in the form of legislation should be going on simultaneously. I feel we take it from every approach, every organization. 

I’m a member of the Elementary Principals Association, and I will 

certainly be bringing that to their attention. I honestly believe it 

was lack of knowledge that led us to the point that we are today. 

Mr. PORTER. Carol, what happens in the classroom or in the 

schools now if you hear of an individual that may have been involved in pedophile or sexual predators. 

Ms. LARK. It is such a serious issue that we immediately turn 

it over to the police authorities. There is a complete investigation 

done immediately. There’s not a minute lost because our children’s 

safety is at stake. 

Granted, we’re very, very concerned because so is that teacher’s 

career at stake, and we value the credibility of both sides of the 

issue, but it would be thoroughly investigated immediately. 

Mr. PORTER. It’s tragic the impact on an innocent individual. 

Ms. LARK. Oh, it is, it’s tragic. 

Mr. PORTER. I can imagine it would ruin their career. That’s why 

it’s very, very sensitive. 

But let’s assume for a moment that we find another state that 

an individual was charged but plea bargained and was able to 

leave. Is that information that you think you should have or not. 

Ms. LARK. I’d like to defer that answer to our attorney, colleague 

here. 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Porter, we do need to know that 

information about arrest. We need to have the complete information concerning arrest. We can then investigate further to see if 

there has been a charge or a conviction. 

I might tell you when Carol says that we turn that information 

over to the authorities, we also suspend that person, we remove 

them from the classroom until we have assurances that there is no 

danger. 

But again I want to emphasize this is 99 and 9 tenths of our employees and volunteers are people who are as appalled at anything 

that they hear of this nature as we are. And so we need to keep 

that in mind, too. 

Mr. PORTER. Assuming the system is working well and you’re 

doing the background check and you have all the right information 

and you find that someone may have a challenge in their past, 

what happens then, and I guess No. 2, how often does that happen? 

Again, if the system is properly in place, how many times do you 

find someone that has had a charge and they’ve been arrested, and 

if they have, what do you do. 

22

Dr. RICE. On the application we ask those approximately 20 

questions concerning this very same thing, and again on the reference form we ask that. 

If indeed a person does come forward and gives us the explanation, the arrest record, the court disposition documents, all of 

that information, then that plays into our decision. And I can tell 

you if it involves sex-related abuse, anything of that sort, violence, 

anything of that sort, then that weighs very, very heavily in our 

decision. The case law prevents me from saying that would eliminate someone, but that weighs very, very heavily in our decision. 

If indeed someone does not tell us on the application, they do not 

self-report, no one of their references is aware or willing to come 

forward with that information, then we get, in this perfect world, 

the FBI report. Then we have them, not because they’ve committed 

the offense, but because they’ve lied on the application, and so 

what we do is remove them, and generally that would be a termination offense. 

Mr. PORTER. What about existing employees? You touched upon 

this a little but, you can’t do a check again, so what do you do 

about your existing staffing. 

Dr. RICE. What we try to do, again through the Nevada Highway 

Patrol, was to say, to have in place that if there is a subsequent 

hit on that record or a subsequent addition to that record, that that 

would be reported to us by the Nevada Highway Patrol. As far as 

I know, we’ve never received anything, so it could be that everyone 

is behaving as they should, all of us, or it could be that maybe 

something is wrong with our system, but that was passed a number of years ago in our legislature. 

What we would like to do is to have every time that a person renews their license, we would like for the state to require 

fingerprinting. Otherwise, we have to have reasonable cause for, 

you know, to look into something of that sort. 

Chairman MCKEON. I’d just ask, how often do they renew their 

license. 

Dr. RICE. If they have a bachelors degree, it’s every 5 years, a 

master’s every six, a doctorate every ten. 

Chairman MCKEON. OK. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. 

Mrs. Stutz, from a National PTA perspective, you mentioned that 

this is a high priority. What do you think that we can do as Members of Congress to help elevate the importance of this and as a 

priority to districts? Is there something that we can be doing separate from passing laws. 

Ms. STUTZ. Well, of course passing the law is something that 

we’re really encouraged about. But once again, I think that Dr. 

Rice has hit on it very well, is getting the publicity out, letting parents know that—if you can get parents behind you and get them 

really onto something, miracles happen. It’s amazing how quickly 

things can move along. This is something that is near and dear to 

parents’ hearts and they’re very protective of their children in this 

area, and I think that with the right publicity you would see an 

upswelling of support that would be maybe amazing even to you. 

Mr. PORTER. The classroom itself, Ms. Lark, we touched upon it 

a moment ago and I want to add something for the record, that 

23

your school is currently meeting the average early progress standards of No Child Left Behind, which is pretty amazing, congratulations, but have you experienced in your professional career a staff 

person that has been charged or arrested with this type of behavior. 

Ms. LARK. In my 14 years I had one reason to suspect, based on 

something that a child reported, and that teacher was investigated 

immediately, and when the investigation was completed, the child, 

it was a fifth grade girl, and she admitted that she made the whole 

thing up and that there was no factual basis for that, and I felt 

very sad that the poor teacher had to go through that entire investigation, that entire experience. But those things will happen, and 

on the side of being safe, again, we will always investigate. But I’ve 

only had the one experience. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you. 

Chairman MCKEON. What happened to the teacher in that situation? 

Ms. LARK. They remained in our school district doing an excellent job. 

Chairman MCKEON. And they were exonerated? 

Ms. LARK. Exonerated totally. 

Chairman MCKEON. And people accepted that. 

Ms. LARK. Yes, I believe so. 

Chairman MCKEON. Let me ask, does the NEA, have they taken 

a position on this, do you know. 

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, as far as I know, they were not aware 

of the bill until recently, and they have not taken a position that 

I’m aware of. 

I do know in informal discussions that our local association has 

not taken a position either but have expressed some concerns about 

the funding connection and the suspicion reference, but they have 

not taken an official position and no one with authority to take 

that position has spoken to me. 

This is just rumblings that I hear. 

Chairman MCKEON. This would be very important. 

I know I’ve sponsored a bill that they wanted, that the NEA 

wanted, and the California Teacher’s Association wanted. In fact, 

they loved me for this bill. 

In California if you— 

Mr. PORTER. It didn’t help me, Mr. Chairman, but I like the bill. 

Chairman MCKEON. In California, and Nevada is affected the 

same way. 

Mr. PORTER. Yes. 

Chairman MCKEON. Because of the retirement plan, if you don’t 

pay into Social Security, then when you retire, you get hit on your 

Social Security, you know, the offset. 

Are you familiar with that—with that? 

Well, because it’s so important to the NEA, they have been a tremendous help on the hill in getting cosponsors, and we have now 

about 300 cosponsors to that bill. So that’s why I bring that up, because they could be very helpful or they could be very harmful in 

getting this passed, because they do have quite a bit of effect on 

the hill. 

24

By the way, we’ve introduced a different, another bill, we have 

not pulled our bill back, we’re still working on it, but in the interim 

Mr. Brady introduced a bill last week that helps, it gets us about 

a third of the way there, and so I’m sure you’ve got a colleague on 

it and will be supporting that bill and we’re hopeful that we can 

move forward on that one, but that would be, you know, it would 

be very important for us I think to get a meeting with them, with 

the NEA, and see where they—because if they came out in support, 

it would be very helpful. 

Mr. PORTER. Can I respond to that, Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman MCKEON. You bet. 

Mr. PORTER. First, I’m a proud cosponsor of your bill and I realize the importance of making sure that the retirement benefits are 

taken care of properly and proud to be a part of that. 

Actually today on our agenda was Mr. Ron Lopez, who had 

agreed to testify, with the Clark County Education Association, so 

we have been communicating with the Teachers’ Association. 

I sense that there is some discomfort with some of the points 

that were mentioned this morning, and I can’t speak for the Teachers’ Association, but I feel convinced that in concept, they support 

the direction that we’re going, but they’re having some challenges 

with a few of the points, which of course that’s why we have the 

meeting, and I wish that they were here to testify to express their 

concerns, but they were invited and Mr. Lopez did say that he 

would testify, and over the weekend he chose not to. But know that 

we are communicating with the Teachers’ Association. 

I agree it’s important, especially the rank and file teachers out 

there want to make sure, as does the association, that we have the 

best, the brightest, and the safest in our classrooms. 

Chairman MCKEON. Well, as I mentioned, nothing is easy, and 

when you do try to move legislation, like I said, I think if we were 

to have a vote here right now we could get it passed, but that will 

be things that we have to deal with as we move forward, and it’s 

important that we do reach out to everybody that would be involved and that we do address everybody’s concerns. 

Like I say, you brought up some really good points that I think 

would be helpful in the legislation today. 

Mr. PORTER. We are in a political arena and, of course, it’s an 

election year for Members of Congress, it’s an election year for the 

White House, the President, plus many U.S. Senators. I guess my 

plea to the educational system nationwide would be to set aside 

partisan politics and do what is in the best interest of our children. 

And as we’re again in this election season, I think you’re going to 

see, I know I’m speaking to the choir, but we’re going to see a lot 

of decisions based upon who may or may not win an election as to 

who supports what, and I would hope that this legislation would 

become a priority separate and apart from the political partisan 

bickering that we see in Washington every day that gets in the way 

of good decisions, and I believe in this legislation, although it’s not 

perfect today, this is a concept, thank you Dr. Rice, that I pledge 

that we will do everything we can to make acceptable but also that 

it works to protect our children. But I would hope that together as 

we work on this improve, modify and compromise, which is what 

political service is all about, that we will have a successful legislaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:41 Oct 18, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\93834 EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
25

tion with your help, the PTA, the teachers, the administration, and 

families across this country. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MCKEON. Well, you picked up an ally here today on 

your legislation. 

I want to thank the witnesses for your valuable time, for your 

testimony, for the work that you’ve put in on this and what you’re 

doing to help our children. That’s very, very important. 

If there is no further business, then, this Subcommittee stands 

adjourned. 

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Whereupon, at 11:10 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

Æ