by Jason Morris

Here is a great new concept, lets make sure our teachers are actually teachers?!? Lets also try to make sure they are who they say they are….Sorry to inject sarcasm on a Friday but come on!! Someone needs to get fired over this screw up!

SARASOTA COUNTY - The arrest of a Suncoast woman posing as a teacher is highlighting a new School District policy.

Susan Bell is out of jail now, after being arrested Tuesday on three felony charges.  She taught children at a Sarasota charter school for two months before her true idenity was revealed.  And now the School District has a new plan to make sure all school employees, past, present and future, are safe to be around your kids.

She claimed to be a teacher.  But using another Sarasota teacher’s certification to get a job finally caught up with her.

“Here, teachers usually send their resumes directly to us.  We screen them ourselves.  And once somebody is hired, they still have to go through the fingerprinting process and still have to go through the background check.”  Daniel Rey is the Executive Director of charter school, but was not the one who hired Bell last year.  ”She was hired by the school and given directions to go get her fingerprints done at The Landings.  In the past, that situation kind of fell through the cracks because she never went and got her fingerprints done.”

And that’s something the Sarasota County School Board says won’t be happening again.  “Everyone has to have their teachers fingerprinted in the State of Florida,” says the school board’s Roy Sprinkle.
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by Jason Morris

AUSTIN — A teacher’s group filed a lawsuit Monday in an effort to prevent the release to the media of personal information gleaned from teacher background checks.

The Association of Texas Professional Educators filed the lawsuit against the Austin school board and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

When the Austin American-Statesman requested the information, the school district tried to withhold it, citing exemptions in the Texas public information laws. But Abbott’s office ruled that part of the information was not exempt from the public information laws.

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by Natalie Beck

You may remember that about two weeks ago, we blogged about this story. When perusing our local news affiliate’s website, I ran across this updated piece. I’m not sure which is scarier – this person working with special education students (as was her former position before she resigned) or working with small children at a day care center (her current position). Scratch that – both very frightening if the criminal records her former employer found in her past turn out to be legit. My question is – if these records do not belong to her, as she claims, why didn’t she officially refute the findings with her former employer instead of just giving up and resigning? Per the FCRA, she has the right to formally dispute the information found in her background check and is entitled to a correction in her report if it is discovered that the records really do not belong to her. Sounds a little fishy to me…

Click here to read “Teacher’s Aide Blames Criminal Background on Mistaken Identity”