Corra Newsboy - Background Checks

School contractors to undergo checks

Districts scramble to fingerprint, do backgrounds on vendors

By JENNY LEE ALLEN

The state wants to make sure everyone who works in Florida schools, even those who just stop by to make repairs or deliveries, are not dangerous sex criminals.

A new law hustled through the Legislature in May requires contractors who work in schools while students are present to pass criminal background checks.

The requirement is part of the Jessica Lunsford Act, named for the 9-year-old Citrus County girl who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in February.

The law could affect everyone from construction workers to referees to the people who deliver frozen pizzas to school cafeterias. The act also establishes a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life behind bars for people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 11 and younger, with lifetime tracking by the Global Positioning System after they are freed.

The man charged in Lunsford's murder, John Couey, was a convicted sex offender who did construction work at the girl's elementary school. Couey lived near Lunsford; the two did not meet at school.

School districts across Florida have been scrambling to interpret the small part of the 82-page act that affects them starting Sept. 1. There are few guidelines for implementation, so districts face a host of questions.Who undergoes background checks? Who pays? What about vendors who work in multiple districts? And how can schools tell who has been checked out and who hasn't?

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posted by Nicholas Gustavson @ 11:01 PM