Florida Law Forces School Contractors to Screen Employees with Access to Children

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - School districts are required by federal law to provide complete criminal background checks of new hires, such as school bus drivers, and a new state law effective Sept. 1 forces all school vendors to do the same.

The law includes subcontractors and any of their employees, but only if they are on school grounds for reasons related to the contract. Schools are also allowed to base the award of contracts on a vendor ensuring that all employees are fingerprinted. Failure to do so amounts to a breach of contract and the school can immediately terminate the vendor.

Charlie Hood, the administrator of the School Transportation Management Section at the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), said school bus operators have been required to perform criminal background checks on employees for years. What's new is that businesses providing temporary school contracting services, such as a transportation provider operating under FMCSA interstate charter rules, must now also comply.

FLDOE issued a technical assistance paper to assist school districts available at www.stnonline.com/stn/industryarchives/generalinterest.

Specifically, any businesses engaged in any school service with employees required to be at school when students are present, have direct contact with students or have access to or control over school funds are affected. Vendors must ensure such personnel receive Level 2 screening, which includes fingerprinting, statewide criminal and juvenile justice record checks through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and federal criminal background checks through the FBI. The screening could also include criminal checks through local law enforcement.

Most school bus contractors operating in Florida and across the nation already perform mandatory criminal background checks and fingerprinting of new hires. Laidlaw, for example, provides background checks as a part of their employment screening process.

"We don't have to do anything differently," company spokesperson Tiffini Bloniarz confirmed. "In most cases we were already going beyond the state and federal regulations."

The new law, known as the Jessica Lunsford Act, unanimously passed the state legislature a month after the body of the 9-year-old Homosassa Springs girl's body was found on April 19 and just days after law enforcement authorities discovered the body of abducted 13-year-old Sarah Lunde of Ruskin. Both men charged in the murders were registered sex offenders and lived near the girls.

Gov. Jeb Bush signed the bill into law on May 2. Under the law, anyone convicted of a sexual crime against a person under the age of 12 would face a mandatory 25-year prison sentence. Upon parole, law enforcement would continue to track the convicted sex predator for life.