Students, volunteers, and staff may balk at background checks, but a recent string of incidents in Brockton, Mass., displays why regularly screening all school personnel is necessary. According to The Enterprise, the director of Human Resources for Brockton Public Schools recently decided to retire as the result of a district-wide background checks controversy. The district’s [...]

Should you be clean to get on welfare? Lawmakers in Florida think so. A recent bill requiring drug tests for temporary welfare assistance in Florida passed through the state senate and house last week and may become law. Florida, however, isn’t alone in requiring drug tests for welfare recipients. We saw a similar instance nearly [...]

Background checks are shaping school staff and volunteers all across the country. Various news stories from the past month show that schools are revising their background check policies for volunteers, unlicensed teachers, and student athletes. For staff, revising policies has not affected numbers; the amounts of volunteers and unlicensed teachers are still sufficient. For athletes, [...]

Two weeks ago, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) put out a press release about a recent study conducted. NELP studied Craigslist ads in five major cities for companies of all sizes. What they found shows that employers of all sizes are essentially implementing blanket hiring procedures through criminal background checks, whether they realize it [...]