Late last month January, Beaumont Independent School District in Texas performed a routine drug roundup in their schools. Though it is not unusual to find a hit or two in the local high school, it was a surprise when a hit was found at Caldwood Elementary School. It wasn’t a student who had drugs on them, but the janitor, Darrel Patrick Clover Jr. When arrested and booked, it was found that Clover, age 32, has a lengthy criminal background, including six misdemeanor drug charges. He has never undergone a background check and has been employed at the school since 1998.
According to the Beaumont Independent School District, non-certified employees, basically anyone who is not a teacher, who was hired prior to January 1, 2008 was never required to go through a background check. The school district had no idea who was working in the same facilities with students. Even though these employees, including janitors, cafeteria workers and secretaries, do not work directly with students, they still interact with them on a daily basis. Parents question if the school district has the best interest of the students in mind with this policy on background checks. The school has stated that Clover has been suspended and that another policy states that any employee found with drugs will be met with criminal charges.
Clover, who had marijuana on him at the time of the arrest, has not yet been charged, but since he was found with drugs in an area that is certified to be a “drug free zone”, it is likely he will be charged with felony drug possession. This recent even raises the question of why all employees who have access to children in a school has not gone through a background check.
In this day and age, it is extremely easy and affordable for companies to get background checks done on their employees. Companies like backgroundchecks.com offer instant information for many types of records including criminal records by county, state and even on a national level. backgroundchecks.com offers many packages and products that can be beneficial for companies and organizations to look into like their Single State OneSEARCH which will pull information from one state and may include information from such places like the Department of Corrections and county courts.
Choosing a third party to do background checks could have prevented this from happening and would have given the school a better idea of who was interacting with their students.
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About Michael Klazema The author
Michael Klazema is the lead author and editor for Dallas-based backgroundchecks.com with a focus on human resource and employment screening developments
