WASHINGTON — While colleagues bicker over a provision in a sex-trafficking bill that would fund abortions for victims of sexual slavery, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey is readying an amendment to protect children from predators at public schools.
Whether the amendment makes it to a vote depends on whether the Senate can resolve its dispute over the abortion provision, and bring the bill to the floor.
Co-sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the measure would require states to compel school districts to conduct more extensive background checks for employees and volunteers who work with children. States would have to prohibit the hiring of school employees convicted of violent or sexual crimes, homicide, or crimes against children such as abuse, neglect or pornography.
The measure also would prohibit districts from hiring people convicted within five years of felony assault or drug offenses, and to prohibit them from knowingly passing along suspected abusers to other school districts in order to get rid of them.
States that fail to comply would lose a portion of their federal education funding.
A similar measure unanimously passed the House last year with the support of teachers unions, which have since reversed course, saying educators who were convicted of crimes and served their sentences should not be subjected to additional punishment.
Mr. Toomey called that argument shocking. “The logic is that an admitted and convicted child molester who served 10 years in prison should be able to walk out of that prison and walk down the street to the local grade school and get a job as a teacher in that grade school. I think that’s ridiculous,” the Republican senator said.
“I’m not suggesting that these people should never get a job but I am suggesting they shouldn’t get this job.”
States already require background checks for teachers, but some exclude coaches, bus drivers and support staff, while others limit checks to their own criminal databases and miss violations in other states. Worse, Mr. Toomey said, some districts have enthusiastically recommended problem teachers to other districts, effectively “passing the trash,” as the senator calls it.
Mr. Toomey said his bill will help, but it faces opposition from lawmakers including Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who said states should retain control of school policies. Mr. Toomey disagrees because bad teachers are being passed across state lines, meaning a federal solution is required.
The legislation says “if you’re going to take federal dollars you can’t spend that on the salary of a pedophile,” Mr. Toomey said. “I don’t think that’s overreach.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has introduced competing legislation that would only prevent districts recommending teachers who have been charged with crimes against children, rather than those suspected of abuse.
Mr. Toomey said that’s a problem, because there are many cases where a teacher’s behavior raises significant concerns about abuse, yet there isn’t enough evidence for criminal charges.
“We’re going to have a battle on the Senate floor over this,” Mr. Toomey said. If the senator loses, he plans to reintroduce his legislation at every opportunity.
He and Mr. Manchin previously failed to insert it into another bill that increased background-check requirements for daycare employees.
Their amendment is inspired by the 1997 rape and slaying of Jeremy Bell, a 12-year-old victimized in West Virginia by school administrator Edgar Friedrichs Jr., who is serving a prison term. Years before, Freidrichs was accused of sexual improprieties while teaching in Delaware County, Pa., but there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him. Instead, the school district got him to leave by recommending him to the West Virginia district.
First Published: March 18, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
