DEC Hoping For Provincial Policy On Criminal Background Checks

A committee member with the Anglophone East District Education Council wants to see procedures change when it comes to criminal background checks.

Ian Hebblethwaite says he recently learned that bus drivers and teachers are only required to have a criminal background check done when they are hired.

He says that is not enough and with the changing times, it is important that this be changed, “I think it is the way of the future that criminal background checks for more and more occupations are going to be a regular thing and I think the time has come for it to change in the school system. I would like to see a provincial policy that mandates some sort of standard.”

Ian Hebblethwaite isn’t prepared to say exactly how often these checks should be done, “I will leave it down to the Department of Education and the teachers union or bus drivers union, if that is how it has to go to come up with a standard.”

The DEC plans to write a letter to Education Minister Dominic Cardy expressing their concerns.