Our 15 cases show that individuals with histories of sexual misconduct were hired or retained by public and private schools as teachers, administrative and support staff, volunteers, and contractors. In at least 11 of these 15 cases, schools allowed offenders with histories of targeting children to obtain or continue employment. Even more disturbing, in at least 6 of the cases, offenders used their new positions as school employees or volunteers to abuse more children after they were hired. We identified the following factors contributing to these employment actions. Voluntary Separations and Positive Recommendations: In four of the cases we investigated, school officials allowed teachers who would have been subject to disciplinary action for sexual misconduct toward students to resign or otherwise separate from the school rather than face punishment. As a result, these teachers were able to truthfully inform prospective employers that they had never been fired from a teaching position and eventually were able to harm more children. In three of these four cases, school officials actually provided positive recommendations or reference letters for the teachers. We found that suspected abuse was not always reported to law enforcement or child protective services. Examples from our case studies include the following. An Ohio teacher was allowed to resign after a school investigation revealed he was having relationships with students that were “too much like boyfriend and girlfriend.” However, district officials felt that they still did not have enough evidence to fire the teacher. Subsequently, the school superintendent wrote him a letter of recommendation, which the offender used to apply to a second Ohio school district, describing him as possessing “many qualities of an outstanding teacher.” The school did not provide us with any evidence that this suspected abuse was reported to law enforcement or child protective services. The teacher was later convicted for committing sexual battery on a sixth grade girl at the second Ohio school district. A Connecticut public school district compelled a teacher to resign after he accessed pornography on a school computer. Although the school district reported the abuse to child protective services, a district administrator told another Connecticut school seeking a reference that they would rehire the teacher “without reservation.” A second Connecticut school district also compelled him to resign, but his separation specifically directed all inquiries from future employers to the superintendent and agreed that he would provide a letter of recommendation. This school district also provided him with positive references. He was eventually hired by a third Connecticut school district, where he was convicted of sexually assaulting two students. A Louisiana private school district allowed a teacher’s contract to expire after his eighth grade students searched his name on the Internet and discovered he was a registered sex offender. The school did not pursue action or notify authorities, but did provide him with a letter of recommendation, which he used to apply to another Louisiana school, which eventually hired him. There, he is alleged to have engaged in inappropriate conversations with a student using an instant messaging service. The school officials we interviewed cited a variety of reasons for allowing the resignations and providing the recommendations. One administrator told us that it could cost up to $100,000 to fire a teacher, even with “a slam dunk case.” Other officials told us that, depending on the terms of a separation agreement, school administrators may not be able to provide anything less than a positive recommendation for an employee for fear of potential lawsuits. One expert we spoke with noted that it is often easier and faster for school administrators to remove a problem teacher informally in order to protect the children within their own district, especially when the administrator agrees to provide a positive recommendation to encourage a resignation. Nonexistent Preemployment Criminal History Checks: In 10 of our 15 cases, school officials did not perform preemployment criminal history checks on prospective employees, including teachers, administrative staff, maintenance workers, volunteers, and contractors. As a result, registered sex offenders were allowed to gain access to both public and private schools. In 7 of these 10 cases, the offenders had been convicted for offenses against children and in at least 2 of the cases, they subsequently committed sexual crimes against children at the schools where they were working or volunteering. The documents we reviewed and the officials we spoke with indicated that the schools chose to forego these checks for a variety of reasons, including that they felt that the process was too time- consuming and costly or that the positions in question would not require daily interaction with children. We found that although the cost of performing a criminal history check varies by state, generally a fingerprint- based national and state check ranges from $21 to $99, paid by either the applicant or the school, and takes as long as 6 weeks to complete. Some schools also told us that they do not perform criminal history checks for support staff, such as maintenance workers, until after they have reported to work. Examples from our case studies including the following. An Arizona public school hired a teacher who had been convicted in Florida for lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. The school chose not to conduct a criminal history check on the teacher because it was in a hurry to fill the position. Ultimately, the offender was arrested and convicted for sexually abusing a young female student at the school. A church-run private school in Ohio employed a maintenance worker who had been convicted in California for lewd and lascivious acts with two minors. The school told us it did not conduct a criminal history check because the maintenance worker was supposed to work primarily for the church that operated the school. However, officials told us that he had regularly worked at the school and frequently interacted with the children, going so far as to buy them meals. In New York, a public school employed a maintenance worker for 5 months until the results of a criminal history check conducted after he had already reported to work revealed that he had been convicted of raping a woman at knife point and was classified as a threat to public safety. A Florida public school allowed an individual who was convicted of having sex with an underage male to work as a volunteer coach without a criminal history check, even though school policy provided that volunteers would be subject to such checks. He was eventually arrested for having sexual contact with a student on one of the school’s sports teams. As we previously noted, state laws with regard to employing sex offenders and conducting criminal history checks vary widely; see appendix I for an overview. Inadequate Criminal History Checks: Even if schools do perform criminal history checks on employees, they may not be adequate because they are not national, fingerprint-based, or recurring. For example: Schools in eight of our cases told us that they conducted state criminal history checks, which only reveal offenses committed by a prospective employee in the state where it is conducted. These schools were located in California, Ohio, New York, Michigan, and Louisiana. Although we did not identify any cases where conducting a state criminal history check resulted in hiring an employee who committed an offense in another state, such an outcome is highly likely. We identified one school in Michigan that used a name-based criminal history search to hire an administrative employee. This online search required officials to search for the precise name under which an individual’s criminal background is recorded. However, the officials used a common nickname instead of the applicant’s full name, so the search did not reveal his eight convictions, which included various sex offenses. A fingerprint criminal history check would likely have revealed these charges. None of the schools we spoke with indicated that they perform recurring criminal history checks. In fact, only a few states have laws requiring schools to conduct such recurring checks intended to identify individuals if they commit offenses while they are employed at schools. For example, we identified two cases where sex offenders were currently employed by California public schools, despite the fact that California has a “subsequent arrest notifications” process to track the criminal history of employees after they are hired. For example, one school never received a subsequent arrest notification when one of its maintenance workers was convicted of sexual battery in 1999. Since they conducted no recurring criminal history checks, school officials were unaware of the employee’s conviction until we notified them during the course of this investigation. In the other case, school officials received notice of an administrative employee’s 2000 arrest for the molestation of a minor, but did not terminate his employment because they believed they were not legally obligated to do so. These officials subsequently left the school district and did not notify current staff about the arrest. Current officials told us they did not have any reason to examine the offender’s employment file during their tenure. Consequently, these officials were not aware that they were employing a convicted sex offender until we notified them. A recurring background check would likely have alerted current staff to the offense. Red Flags on Employment Applications: Many of the schools we spoke with require job applicants to self-report basic information regarding their criminal background, but in three of our cases, schools failed to ask applicants about troubling responses. For example, an applicant for an Arizona teaching position answered yes when asked if he had been convicted of “a dangerous crime against children.” However, that school could provide no information to suggest that it followed up with the applicant or law enforcement about this admission before hiring the offender. The offender eventually was arrested for sexually abusing a young female student at the school. In the two remaining cases, applicants did not provide any response when asked about previous criminal history and school officials could not provide evidence that they had inquired about the discrepancy or required the applicant to provide the information. For example, a Michigan public school hired an administrative employee who had multiple convictions for sexual offenses. On his application, the offender did not respond to a question about whether he had ever been convicted of a crime, though he answered every other question on the application. Similarly, a California charter school hired an administrative employee who failed to answer a question about previous felony convictions, even though he had been convicted of a felony sex offense against a minor. Table 1 provides a summary of the 15 cases we examined; a more detailed narrative on seven of the cases follows the table.