Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.
Preventing sexual abuse of students by school employees is as much about removing the opportunity as it is about checking an individual's background before hiring, the president of a local advocacy group said Tuesday.
The arrest of a gym teacher at a Summerlin private school on charges he sexually abused two boys while teaching in Texas highlights the fact that background checks are not guarantees, said Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct & Exploitation, or SESAME.
"There's not enough education going on about what the warning signs are and what situations require teachers and administrators to report what they know to an authority outside of the school," Miller said. "Sometimes fellow employees will witness something and feel uncomfortable taking action. They need to know that it's not a choice -- it's the law."
Christopher Williams, 31, had cleared a background check and had stellar recommendations from his prior employer, said Ann Marie De Marco Rehm, spokeswoman for the Alexander Dawson School in Summerlin. Metro Police said there is no evidence that Williams engaged in any misconduct during his five months in Las Vegas.
Williams, who worked as the Summerlin private school's athletic director from September until his arrest Friday, is awaiting extradition to Houston on five felony counts. He previously spent four years at Holy Spirit Episcopal School in Houston, where he was named teacher of the year.
The charges stem from his interaction with two boys at that school, police said.
The fact that the boys apparently waited until Williams left the school to report the alleged molestation isn't surprising, Miller said.
"Sometimes the child will wait until the teacher no longer poses an immediate threat," Miller said. "The downside of that is the teacher has usually moved on to another school at that point."
Dawson relies on a private company to conduct its background checks. The Clark County School District, which has hired 1,600 new teachers in each of the last three years, requires applicants to submit fingerprints, which are then run through the FBI database.
The state requires public school teachers to be licensed by the state Education Department, which conducts its own background checks as part of that process. But the district does a second check of its own, said George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources.
"Our stance is that we want to see the FBI report and make any judgments for ourselves," Rice said.
A private school may hire a teacher who holds a license from another state or a person with at least three years' experience and a bachelor's degree. Many private and parochial schools require state licenses the same as public schools. Private schools are not required to perform background checks on applicants, but many do voluntarily.
In the past three years 16 Clark County School District employees have been arrested and charged with sex-related offenses, including allegations of molestation, sex with students and possession of child pornography.
Teacher Duane Johnson was arrested in March 2001 on charges of felony lewdness with a girl younger than 13. The district learned after the fact that his previous employer in Utah did not disclose that Johnson had been fired after admitting to a consensual sexual relationship with an 18-year-old student.
Johnson's trial, scheduled for last week, was delayed and Johnson is to appear before District Judge Donald Mosley Thursday to have it rescheduled, according to court records.
Since Johnson's arrest, the district has revised its job application, Rice said.
"We now ask if (applicants) have ever been the subject of an investigation, as well as whether they have ever been arrested or convicted," Rice said.
Each year fewer than a half-dozen applications are flagged because the background check has revealed something the individual did not disclose on the questionnaire, Rice said.
"If there's never been an arrest, if the person's supervisor doesn't know of anything or doesn't tell us when we check references, we have no way of knowing," Rice said. "If we had a giant lie detector that could walk through and it would ring if they had an evil heart -- that's the only guarantee I can think of and, unfortunately, no one's invented one of those yet."
The district produced a video several years ago that addresses the subject of sexual misconduct, which is shown to new teachers as well as at professional development events throughout the year, Rice said.
"We remind employees about what's proper behavior and what is not, as well as the importance of avoiding even the appearance of wrongdoing," Rice said. "That means you don't take students out in your car, you don't have a child in your classroom alone with the door closed. These are things that could be misconstrued by someone walking by."
Miller said lesser requirements increase the risk of a "bad apple" winding up at a private school.
"Often people are allowed to just quietly resign from districts in other states and they gravitate to the private schools because there's less scrutiny," Miller said.
Metro Police do not conduct background checks for businesses or private interests, but employers can request criminal history information, Metro spokesman Officer Jose Montoya said.
Some businesses ask applicants to provide a copy of their local criminal history, which can be obtained by the applicant at Metro's plaza desk at city hall. The information would include any local violations.
Some jobs require a background check conducted by the FBI's Criminal Information Justice Services Division in West Virginia.
"Each state decides who needs that level of check, but for the most part you can count on teachers and bankers," said Steve Fischer, a spokesman for the division.
The FBI maintains the National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, a computerized index of criminal history information that is available to federal, state, and local law enforcement.
"You may have a teacher applying for a job in Las Vegas, and you want to check them at the FBI level because a felony from Pennsylvania won't show up in a local check," Fischer said.
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