While the Maine state Legislature drags its feet and many school boards and committees scratch their collective heads about what to do, the York School Committee has made a positive move in regard to the fingerprinting and background checks for educators. There are some groups within the educational community questioning the need for the checks. Well, this is one way to do just that because it is a way to protect all our young people from those few who should not have access to them. We do not see this as a privacy violation, any more than we do sobriety checks on the highway.
Background checks are for the greater good.
We feel it is also the state's responsibility to pay for it. The entire cost of fingerprinting a district's teachers should not fall on the shoulders of the local property tax payers. But we support the York School Committee's action because it puts in place a valuable layer of safety, sooner than later, for the kids. Given that state governments, even those with hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus, are slow to move, it's good to see at least one school committee take action to pay the bill. If the Legislature in Maine moves to pay the bill, the York School Committee will be reimbursed, as it should be.