The DeKalb County School Board may start the new year with its own fireworks at its board meeting Monday night.
That is when the board will have to deal with the position taken by a new member that he should not have to submit to a background check conducted by the school system. Board Chairman Melvin Johnson said it would be regrettable if the board had to spend time dealing with what has become sideshow in a district that has had its share of troubles.
“The only thing I can say is this is the first time ever of hearing about a board member not wanting to be fingerprinted,” Johnson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday. “We will have to think of something at our next meeting.”
Stan Jester, the newly elected member, said he doesn't mind getting a background check but doesn't want the school police department to conduct it because as a board member he oversees it.
“I am about as boring as they come, I write software for a living,” said the 43-year-old Jester of Dunwoody. “I write software for a living. I am the chair of my elementary school carpool.”
Jester posted a written exchange with Johnson on his website in which he directs the chairman to a weblink with the clean Georgia criminal background he had run on himself and to the fingerprints taken by the Dunwoody Police Department, which could be used to run the national background check required by the school district. As of Friday, the website showed no results for any national background check for Jester who has lived in Texas and other states.
DeKalb school police Chief Don Smith said Jester’s solution might not pass administrative muster.
“Here is the problem with that, we don’t accept as a matter of policy any – and I mean any – background check from any other agency for security reasons,” Smith told The AJC. “Any background check can be altered coming from one agency to another.”
Jester’s concerns that there was a conflict-of-interest in the school security doing a background check on a board member was misplaced, Johnson said.
“He doesn’t oversee them— he has nothing to do with them,” Johnson said. “The superintendent oversees them. That is operational.The only thing that does is make sure a policy is in place. The policy on fingerprinting for instance.”
Smith said all school employees, volunteers and board members are fingerprinted for a national background check every five years. Jester, in his exchange with Johnson, indicated he thought fingerprinting volunteers who worked with children was overboard but regardless the school policy did not apply to board members despite past practice.
“Apparently they were a stickler about that one,” he said of the fingerprint practice. “That being said, there’s no policy in DeKalb County or state law requiring board members to get a fingerprint check.”
Johnson said he might be open to a background check being provided to the school district from a police department but would have to hear from Smith regarding best practices. He said he thought board members ought to submit to the same background checks required of employees and volunteers — and that that had been the practice for years.
“After this we might have to adopt as a policy to make it clear,” he said. “The board has consulted with him regarding making sure the documentation be sent to the security department in DeKalb County. “I can only assume he will do it.
“We’ve got bigger issues to deal with.”
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