Excerpted from Tristate Homepage article by Stuart Hammer
The Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation has 3,400 employees and state law requires everyone to pass a background check. School leaders say it is a solid process – but it may not be air tight.
Justin Wolf, a 25-year-old third-grade teacher at Scott Elementary previously worked at the YMCA in downtown Evansville.
The Y confirms Wolf was cited for having a child sit on his lap in 2012. Further investigation found no evidence of abuse. Y officials say Wolf was required to take child safety training. They report this was the only complaint against him.
Years later Wolf would get a job with the EVSC after graduating from USI in 2016, but school leaders say the incident at the YMCA didn’t appear on background checks.
Wolf now faces multiple felony counts of child molestation for allegedly touching a student during class.
EVSC spokesman, Jason Woebkenberg says background checks don’t always catch everything. “If an employee is working for an individual, they’d have a conversation about performance, for example, that is an internal record. That’s not going to go through on any future screening.”
Prospective employees must pass through national and local criminal history and sex offender registries, a child protection index, and phone calls with former employers.
You can read the full story here.