Austin ISD First to Fingerprint Certified Employees

Nancy Hobby, AISD’s supervisor of recruiting and staffing, is heading up AISD’s efforts and said things are going well in spite of the project’s size, which she describes as “massive…it does take on a life of its own.”

She’s spent a lot of time on the phone with TEA’s office of fingerprinting and investigations to get issues resolved and praised the staff for its help. “I’ve had a really good experience working with TEA. [The staff has] been open to our ideas and suggestions. The whole process was a collaborative effort…and we were happy to participate in the early planning stages,” Hobby said.

For certified employees, the cumbersome part of the process seems to be successfully completing their FAST Fingerprint Pass requests. Many employees don’t understand what to do, some get frustrated when system-related problems slow them up, and some just enter their e-mail addresses incorrectly. The actual fingerprinting appointment takes about 10 minutes, so that has been the easy part.

As a result of her experience, Hobby urges HR administrators to do as much as they can to prepare their certified employees to correctly upload their FAST Pass information beforehand. As soon as employees begin receiving their e-mail notifications from TEA, they will keep administrators busy with FAST Pass questions.

Some Austin teachers have raised objections to the fingerprinting process, claiming that the step is unnecessary and intrusive. At this point, there is little they can do to protest the change. Educators who refuse to be fingerprinted could have their teaching certificate suspended. “I expect that people will have different views concerning SB 9 and I respect that. However, it is a law and as a district we must comply with it,” Hobby said.

Hobby’s glad that AISD got to go first, even though that meant extra work for the district. “Going first means we get to experience all the pains of a new project and a new system; however, it also means it will be behind us and we will be very happy to be finished,” Hobby said.

While AISD looks forward to completing the process, Hobby knows her work won’t be done. She’ll be the go-to HR administrator for other districts looking for help and advice. She’s fine with that. “I will be happy to share information with any school district that is next on the list,” Hobby said. She has even drafted some frequently asked questions and answers for employees that might be helpful to others.

Keeping it in perspective

S.B. 9’s main objective is to keep sexual predators out of schools. State Sen. Florence Shapiro, S.B. 9’s sponsor, noted in an opinion piece that the State Board for Educator Certification found that in 2004–05, 66 of the state’s certified teachers were registered sex offenders. Fingerprinting teachers and substitutes will provide national criminal history records to prevent districts from employing such “bad apples.”

And while fingerprinting is new in Texas, it’s not new to other states. Doug Phillips, TEA’s director of investigations and fingerprinting, noted that states with a comparable number of teachers (New York, California, and Florida) have been fingerprinting educators for years. “That puts us substantially behind the curve, but hopefully catching up fast,” Phillips said.