House approves bill to protect children from sexual misconduct in schools

(This news release was sent out by several Missouri House Republicans today.)

The House has approved legislation that would allow school districts to open up lines of communication with one another as a way to stop employees with a history of abusing students from moving from one district to another.

The bill would allow for school districts to contact an employee’s former employers from a list supplied by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. A school would be required to disclose the actual violation of the school’s regulations as it pertains to sexual misconduct with a student.

The legislation has the support of various child advocacy groups, who told lawmakers that right now, schools cannot share such information about former employees. This often allows individuals with a history of abuse to find jobs in other districts and to abuse more children.

One lawmaker who supports the bill said, “This will free up HR directors and assistant superintendents to speak the truth. It will allow people not to be hired in other districts when they were fired from a different district. I think what we’re doing is not only saving children but affording school districts an opportunity not to be sued at the rate they are being sued at this point.”

One provision added on the House Floor would require criminal background checks of anyone who volunteers with a school district, if that person will have regular or one-on-one contact with students or access to student records.

Another piece added by the full House extends the definition of those who can be found guilty of abuse to include any person who developed a relationship with a child through school, even if the abuse did not occur on school grounds or during school hours.

The sponsor of the provision said it would close a “loophole” child advocates had identified.

The sponsor said, “If the offense would happen on school grounds that’s easy enough to take care of, but when the offense happens off those school grounds, there’s been four cases in the last two years that [investigators have] had a lack of a preponderance of evidence.”

The bill adds two-and-a-half hours to the training required of new school board members, which would be focused on identifying signs of sexual abuse and potentially abusive relationships between adults and children. It would also require an hour of refresher training, annually.

Finally, the bill requires schools to offer students trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate sexual abuse training for grades six and above. Parents who don’t want their children to receive that training could choose to opt-out of it.

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.