Thousands of Maryland public-school staff don’t have proper background checks, report reveals 

A Maryland school district is under fire after a report revealed thousands of public-school staff hadn’t been properly vetted.

On Aug. 4, the Montgomery County Inspector General released a report finding Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) hadn’t been conducting the required background checks for staff or volunteers.

“MCPS has more than 12,000 current employees who have outdated criminal history checks and approximately 4,900 individuals that have not undergone a CPS check and may have access to children,” the report reads.

“Additionally, while MCPS contractors and certain volunteers with unsupervised access to students are required to have criminal history checks, we found that some began work prior to those checks being completed.”

The Inspector General noted MCPS is the largest school district in the state of Maryland, with over 200 schools and 160,000 students. Nevertheless, at least half of the 24,000 school employees hadn’t been recently vetted.

Background checks on school staff are extremely important because of the sexual abuse of minors in public schools.

Researchers estimate 10% of students will experience some form of sexual misconduct before they graduate high school. Other reports suggest as many as 38% of students are harassed by teachers or school employees between eighth and 11th grade.

Montgomery parents voiced their displeasure over the report’s findings.

“It’s another way that MCPS has dropped the ball,” said Dawn Iannaco-Hahn, the mother of two MCPS students. “They are not keeping the kids safe; they are not keeping the staff safe, either.”

After the alarming report, MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor released a statement to parents insisting “your children are safe” and blaming previous administrations for the district’s failure.

“These issues stem from gaps in our systems dating back to at least 2019, which were not properly addressed by prior administrations. We are now uncovering the full extent of these issues and are taking swift and serious action to correct them,” Taylor wrote.

“We’re fixing what wasn’t done completely or consistently in the past, and we are doing it with urgency, transparency and a focus on getting it right.”

However, Iannaco-Hahn said she doesn’t think the district is being honest or realistic.

“Why are you telling me, ‘Your kids are safe?’ Obviously, it means they are not, and you’re ready to unload something else on it, and that’s exactly what happened,” she told local media.

“How are they are going to remedy this with the 2-3 weeks before school starts? How are you going to suddenly vet 5,000 people in that time period?”

Montgomery parents recently sued the district over its gender and sexuality programming for students as young as 3. The district had stopped parents from opting their children out, but the Supreme Court overruled that policy in a June ruling.