Senator John McCain Sponsors Bill to Enhance Background Checks for all Educators with unsupervised Access to Children

Press Release

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) co-sponsored The Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, legislation recently introduced by Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) that would keep sexual and violent predators out of American classrooms. The bill would require schools receiving federal funds to perform background checks on all new and existing workers who have unsupervised access to children. This includes the substitute teachers, coaches, classroom aides, and bus drivers who are hired as contractors, and are not subject to background checks in 12 states. The background checks must be thorough, covering two state and two federal databases.

"When Arizona parents send their kids to school each day, they should have the highest level of confidence that their children are safe and in good hands," said Senator McCain. "This legislation would fill the disturbing gap in background screenings for educators in schools across the country by requiring substitute teachers and other non-contract employees to submit to rigorous background checks before they step foot in a classroom. We have no greater duty than to keep American children safe. I thank Senators Toomey and Manchin pushing forward this common-sense legislation."

The Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act would also forbid schools from hiring persons who have been convicted of certain crimes, including any violent or sexual crime against a child. Further, the bill would prohibit schools from allowing a child molester to resign quietly and helping the predator find a new teaching job elsewhere -- a practice so common it has its own moniker: "passing the trash."

Arizona students' lives have been put in danger by a lack of thorough background checks. In March 2014, Alvin Ray McClellan, a teacher's aide at Mohave Middle School in Scottsdale, was arrested and convicted of multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a minor when detectives from the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force discovered numerous pornographic images and videos of minors on his computer. While State law requires schools to conduct background checks on all employees and submit results to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Department has reported it has no record of background check results for McClellan.

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