Background:
Between September 23 and September 29, 2005, Governor Granholm signed
a series of 18 public acts that comprise the Student Safety Initiative.
These acts address several different measures to make our schools
safer for students, and to increase the penalties for those who
are a threat to student safety. The package of bills amended several
statutes, including but not limited to, the Teacher Tenure Act,
the Revised School Code, and the Michigan Penal Code. All of the
public acts took effect on January 1, 2006 with the exception of
Public Act 125, which enacts sentencing guidelines for the crime
of school employees failing to report conviction for listed offenses.This
act took effect September 29, 2005.
At
present:
The Department of Information Technology (DIT) works with the Department
of Education (MDE) and State Police to develop and implement an
automated program that compared the list of Registered Educational
Personnel (REP) with the conviction information database. If a person
on the REP has been convicted of a crime, the MDE is required to
notify the district indicated on the REP as the employing district.
These lists are to be compiled once every six months until July
1, 2008.
After a February
2006 release of the list revealed a large number of “false
positive” identifications, the legislature revisited this
issue to “clean up” the bill
to ensure that more accurate records were released to schools and
that only confirmed names involved in the most dangerous crimes
could be released to media.
New lists, run
through more filters to ensure greater accuracy, were released to
schools in mid May 2006. The MDE letter gave school boards and superintendents
the following information by employee:
- Date of
conviction,
- Legal cite
of the conviction (Penal Code reference),
- Description
of the conviction, and
- Whether the
conviction is a felony or misdemeanor.
Convictions
for listed offenses
will require immediate dismissal of the employee.
Next
steps:
The law allows schools 15 business days after receipt of the list
in which to confirm the accuracy of the names identified by MDE.
The information is protected, by law, from FOIA requests
during those 15 days. The MDE suggests schools follow these
action steps:
- Verify
and address listed employees in priority order based
on the seriousness of the conviction:
a. Listed
offenses. Verification of a listed offense conviction requires
dismissal from employment.
b. Felony convictions. Verification of any other felony conviction
requires the school superintendent or chief administrator and
school board or governing body to agree in writing to retain the
employee.
c. Misdemeanors or ordinance violations.
- If an employee
alleges a conviction does not belong to him/her, schools must
confirm the individual’s identity by having
the employee complete a personal record challenge, before the
school can take employment action. Contact Dr.
Frank P. Ciloski at the MDE at 517.373.6791 for information
on the challenge procedure.
- Review these
new requirements, along with FOIA exemptions, with your district’s
legal counsel.
- Submit corrections
to your list to Dr. Frank
P. Ciloski at the MDE within 15 business days.
- Report the
status of listed employees to the MDE within 60 days.
On this
EduSource page, you will find:
In addition,
we have compiled some useful documents that some Michigan districts
have used locally. These are offered for information only; each
district must determine the appropriate response to legal requirements.
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