New Law Requires School Board Background Checks

School board membership requirements have gotten stricter thanks to a new law.

Signed into law on May 26, the rule requires board members and charter school trustees to undergo criminal background checks within 30 days of being elected or appointed to a charter school board, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association.

Crimes involving controlled dangerous substances and drug paraphernalia, robbery, aggravated assault, stalking, kidnapping, arson, manslaughter and murder, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, criminal restraint, luring or enticing a child, causing or risking widespread injury or damage, criminal mischief, burglary, threats or improper influence, resisting arrest, bias intimidation, escape, perjury or false swearing and usury would prevent someone from serving as a board of education member, according to the law.

“Anyone who has been found to be convicted of certain crimes would not be able to serve,” Mike Yaple, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, said. “Essentially, these are the same five crimes that teachers are checked for.”

Under the new law, the board member oath of office will include a specific statement saying that the board member is not disqualified from office because of a conviction.

Though the law initially proposed that board members pay for the checks out-of-pocket, the New Jersey School Boards Association asked that the law be amended to allow districts to reimburse members.

As a result, boards can decide whether to pay for the checks or whether the district will reimburse them.

“It’s tough to tell which way districts are leaning because it’s so new,” Yaple said. “When this came out, we supported it but said charter school trustees should be included in the checks.”

The policy states that board members would need to undergo the checks one month after the law’s May approval date. However, the sheer number of board members—4,800, not including charter school trustees, according to Yaple—had the Department of Education postponing the background check deadline.

“It will get done, but it won’t get done in 30 days,” Yaple said. “They (the Department of Education) need to receive clearance from the federal officials before they can have this done. The center that actually does this has to implement changes in order to do it.”

Most boards have accepted the checks with little dissent, and minimum disruption to their structure, Yaple said.

“Whenever you have an organization with 4,800 members, you will have members who object,” he said. “But generally, there has been support for this.”

“It’s never been required for school board members because school board members never really had any sort of regular contact with students,” he added.