The Fingerprinting Process – Employee and Contractors

The Fingerprinting Process – Employee and Contractors

November 7, 2022 | Personnel Management

Do you ever feel like saying “Help! How do I stay in compliance with fingerprinting and background check requirements for my employees and contractors?” Especially with the recent related changes, we’re here to help answer some of your most frequently asked fingerprinting questions.

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Where can I find background information about fingerprinting?

The 2007 Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 9 requiring fingerprint-based criminal background reviews for certain school employees in Texas Public schools. Senate Bill 9 is codified in Texas Education Code (TEC), Chapter 22, Subchapter C.

  1. State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) Rules regarding the national criminal history reviews of certificate holders are found in Chapter 232, Subchapter B of the Texas Administrative Code.
  2. Commissioner Rules regarding criminal history reviews are found in Chapter 153, Subchapter DD of the Texas Administrative Code.
  3. Statute codified in Texas Education Code 22.083-22.087relates to the national criminal history reviews of certified teachers, charter school employees, non-certified staff, contractors, and substitutes.

Who needs to be fingerprinted?

According to Texas state law:

  • All certified educators and those serving in certified roles
  • All other employees “non-certified” who were hired after 1/1/2008
  • Substitute teachers
  • Contractors who have ANY interaction with students hired after 1/1/2008

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ED/htm/ED.22.htm

We are a new charter school. How do we get started?

What are the employer’s obligations?

In a nutshell, in the interest of school safety and protecting students, the school is required to have reviewed the fingerprint-based background record of all employees and contractors and to have barred from employment any person with a record based on law and local policy that would prevent them from working for the district.

How does the employer meet this obligation?

For employers:

  1. Obtain prospective employee’s background authorization (“Consent”-see item #1 above)
  2. Complete a template with their demographic information, then upload to ECOS (template found here: https://tea.texas.gov/texas-educators/investigations/fingerprinting/fp-upload-template)
  3. Login to ECOS to see response after upload

• If the employee needs to get fingerprinted, the employee will be sent an email with instructions on how to schedule an appointment.

• If the employee has already been fingerprinted, that status will be indicated

  1. Login to DPS- FACT Clearinghouse

• Review the prospective employee’s criminal history and determine employment eligibility – strict guidelines apply

• Subscribe the employee to your charter (unsubscribe the employee when/if separated from employment with your charter)

  1. Fill out the Computerized Criminal History (CCH) Verification Form

• Once the employee’s record has been pulled and reviewed, the authorized school admin must complete the CCH form, to document if the record was printed, the purpose for the review, and the date the search was conducted. If you print the criminal record, you must also record the date it is destroyed.

• Once the form is completed, it must be kept on file for all school employees, in the event of an audit.

*A locally developed form can be used in place of the attachment, if it records similar information.

Who can’t we hire?

There are two reasons an individual CANNOT work for you!

  1. He/she has been convicted of an offense in the Texas Penal Code, Section; OR
  2. He/she has offense that has caused them to be registered as a sex offender AND the victim was a minor or enrolled in public school at the time of the offense http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ED/htm/ED.22.htm#22.085

*Local restrictions may be more strict.

What about contractors?

NEW INFORMATION! Information related to hiring contractors:

An updated explanation of how school contractor criminal history background checks will be managed going forward, effective July 2021, was released by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). This introduced significant changes to how this process was handled in the past.

From TEA: RECENT CHANGES TO ACCESS POLICIES

Texas Education Code (TEC) §22.0834 and §22.08341 state that a contractor that provides services to a school district or charter school must be fingerprinted before beginning work, if the contractor 1) will have continuing duties related to the contracted services, and 2) will have the opportunity for direct contact with students. Pursuant to §22.08341(c), the requirement does not apply to a contractor that performs construction, alteration, or repair of an instructional facility if the contractor uses separate sanitary facilities, installs a barrier fence, and has a policy that employees may not interact with students or enter areas used by students.

Due to requirements from a 2019 FBI audit, DPS will change how it grants Clearinghouse access to schools and contractors for the purposes of reviewing criminal history under TEC §22.0834. The FBI notified DPS that TEC §22.0834 should be amended to provide access to school districts and charter districts only, not to contractors.  When these changes are implemented, school districts and charter schools will lose access to the criminal history records of individuals who were previously fingerprinted by contractors or by HHSC. Although the fingerprint results will be in the DPS Clearinghouse, the results will be partitioned and cannot be accessed. If school districts or charter schools need to review the criminal history of these individuals, they will need to fingerprint the individuals again.

School districts and charter schools may only access the records of individuals that districts printed under TGC §411.097, TEC Chap. 22, Subchapter C, or through a Local Education Entity (LEE) pass.

Who is classified as a contractor that needs to be fingerprinted?

An individual who:

  • (A)  is employed or offered employment by a service contractor or a subcontractor of a service contractor, is an individual independent contractor of the school entity, or is an individual subcontractor of a service contractor;
  • (B)  has or will have continuing duties related to the contracted services;
  • (C)  has or will have direct contact with students; and
  • (D)  is not a student of (or enrolled in) the school entity for which the services are performed.

New Process! Fingerprinting and Background Checks for Contractors

Schools may fingerprint a contractor and/or contractor’s employees using the Local Education Entity (LEE) Fast Pass option. In this situation, schools will have access to the background results. The contractor, however, will not be able to view the results through the DPS Clearinghouse.

Schools may request access to the DPS Secure Site FACT Clearinghouse or to receive their LEE Fast Pass by calling 512-424-2474, Option 1.

Once fingerprinting has been complete and the background record is available to the school to review for both employees and contractors, take these steps:

  1. Login to DPS- FACT Clearinghouse
  2. Review the prospective employee’s/contractor’s criminal history and determine employment eligibility.
  3. Subscribe the employee or contractor to your charter (unsubscribe the employee when/if separated from employment with your charter)
  4. Fill out the Computerized Criminal History (CCH) Verification Form per DPS requirements.

o    Once the contractor’s record has been pulled and reviewed, the authorized school admin must complete the CCH form, to document if the record was printed, the purpose for the review, and the date the search was conducted. If you print the criminal record, you must also record the date it was destroyed.

o    Once the form is completed, it must be kept on file for all school contractors, in the event of an audit.

*A locally developed form can be used in place of the attachment if it records similar information. 

Local Education Entity (LEE) Fast Pass Need to Knows:

The Local Education Entity (LEE) fast pass is a method of fingerprinting individuals who fall into very narrow categories:

  1. Contractors – more details listed above
  2. Individuals who have been printed through TEA, but have FBI results missing in the TxDPS FACT Clearinghouse
  3. Individuals printed before 6/1/15, who a district requires to be re-printed to be enrolled in FBI rapback notifications.

When an individual is fingerprinted with the LEE fast pass, the results are sent only to the district or charter school that has initiated the fingerprinting process with the LEE fast pass. TEA does not receive these results, and does not have the ability to receive or transfer results into their system from a LEE fingerprinting.

The LEE fast pass should NOT be used to fingerprint an employee or substitute teacher of a school district or charter school that has never been uploaded and fingerprinted through the TEA process (ECOS).

When viewing results in the TxDPS FACT Clearinghouse, if an individual’s Active Applicant Status displays “Local Education Entity”, and has no reflection of printing through TEA or SBEC, the individual must be fingerprinted again through the TEA process.

Is fingerprinting compliance really that important?

Absolutely! Fingerprinting is one of the few areas where non-compliance consequences are tied directly to the Superintendent. A Superintendent certifies annually in November that their charter is in compliance with the Texas Education Code rules on fingerprinting. A Superintendent can be sentenced to jail time if fingerprinting is not in compliance.

Have some questions?