H.B. 190 (eff. Nov. 14, 2007) – Requires private contractors who work with a school district for a “regular period of time” to run background checks on all employees assigned to a district building or project. Public owners are beginning to rely upon this newly enacted statute to require private contractors to obtain fingerprints and request both an Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (“BCII”) and an FBI records check prior to assigning employees to work on district projects. Further, the background check must be repeated every five years for each employee, and private contractors hired by school districts must pay the cost of these checks.
The new law, R.C. 3319.391, requires a criminal background check for any person, other than people transportation operators, who is:
(1) Hired to work in a school district, educational service center or chartered non-public school; and
(2) In any position that does not require a “license” issued by the state board of education. This definition can be applied broadly, to include groundskeepers, construction workers and others who enter school property to perform services.
Pursuant to R.C. 3319.381(A)(2), an employee is ineligible to work on a school district project if that employee has ever been convicted of or plead guilty of an offence listed in R.C. 3319.39(B)(1).
There is currently a movement aimed at adding an exception that would apply to private contractors that will not have access to children when performing work on a school district project. But currently, the law is in effect and applies to all private contractors on school district projects. Employees who were hired prior to the effective date of the law and who were not previously required to have background checks will have to be checked by September 5, 2008, as recently established by the Ohio Department of Education.