There are calls for greater scrutiny when employing persons who work around children. Concerns have been raised as there are said to be persons, who have been convicted of sexual crimes, who are still in the classrooms.

STUDENTS AT RISK

How lax background checks can allow convicted sex offenders to remain teachers in schools

20 Jun 2022/Kimone Francis

CONCERNS ARE mounting that porous vetting processes and lax disciplinary mechanisms in Jamaica’s public schools may be shielding dangerous educators who have remained in the classroom despite being guilty of physical and sexual abuse.

But a Gleaner probe has revealed that deep-rooted systemic deficiencies and gaps in background checks – stretching back decades – may still be placing thousands of schoolchildren at risk because of recruitment and rehiring processes that do not adequately trace historical crimes.

Investigations by this newspaper show that in June 2009, a teacher was convicted for the carnal abuse of a 15-year-old girl, “which resulted in her pregnancy and the subsequent birth of a child”.

The teen was a student of Little London High in Westmoreland, one of nine schools at which he was employed as a teacher.

Court and state agency documents obtained by The Gleaner said the teacher pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but it was suspended.

He was subsequently employed at St Andrew College, now renamed Northern Technical High School, as a full-time geography and social studies teacher just two months after his conviction. (He is now an immigration officer.)

However, several of the schools at which he taught, including Little London, were not listed, according to the resume submitted to the management of the school, a copy of which was seen by The Gleaner.

In a telephone interview with The Gleaner in April, the teacher denied having a criminal record, insisting that the matter had been “disposed of”.

Pressed on what was meant by disposed of,

the teacher said that the record was expunged.

However, Section 20A(3)(b) (i) and (iii) stipulates that where a person has been convicted under the Sexual Offences Act, the criminal record cannot be expunged if the applicant was in a position of trust or authority towards the other party. It also said evidence must be provided to the Criminal Records Board that the applicant was less than four years older than the other party.

There has been public outrage since l ast week’s meeting of the joint select committee of Parliament reviewing the Jamaica Teaching Council Bill, where it was revealed that a teacher who was convicted of child abuse was still in the classroom at Half-Way Tree Primary School in St Andrew.

That disclosure put Education Minister Fayval Williams on the back foot, forcing her to order a probe.

Williams disclosed to The Gleaner that she has requested of the education ministry a report on all information about the incident.

The minister has since issued a message of zero tolerance.

“If you commit those kinds of crimes while you are a teacher, then there is no place for you in the classroom once you are convicted,” Williams said in a Gleaner interview at the weekend.

“You should not be allowed to teach, and I firmly believe that and support that position from the NPTAJ,” the education minister said, referencing the National ParentTeacher Association of Jamaica.

Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Winston Smith conceded that greater scrutiny may be needed but questioned schools’ capacity to properly vet prospective recruits.

“How readily available is information, and do schools have the resources to execute such investigation? It must be clearly stated that the JTA does not condone any such behaviour by any of its members and has constantly taken steps to provide professional development services to our members as well as educating our members on how to execute their duties,” Smith said in a May 26 Gleaner interview.

“Many schools do have that at the early childhood level. However, the cost to acquire the same will be prohibitive, especially in light of the poor salary paid to teachers,” he said.

General secretary of the NPTAJ, Donovan Mayne, told committee members that the Half-Way Tree Primary teacher was convicted of physically abusing a child more than three years ago and that the student remains traumatised.

Mayne said that the abused child “peed” himself when he saw the convicted teacher at school.

But the incident is not an isolated one, prompting Mayne and the NPTAJ to recommend that the bill bar teachers who are convicted of rape, assault, and child abuse from the classroom for life.

The crisis is also weighing on the mind of Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) CEO Rosalee Gage-Grey.

“We have seen a lot of reports across the teaching profession. We’ve seen persons in the health services as well. We’ve seen social workers even within the agency who we would have had to take disciplinary actions against persons who would have caused some abuse to our children,” Gage-Grey said in a Gleaner interview on April 8.

“Once you have committed an offence and you have been charged, found guilty, and sentenced, then by virtue of that, you should not be working in an environment where children are,” she added.

Gage-Grey as also called for the country’s sex-offender registry to be made public.

She noted that schools have the registry at their disposal when seeking to employ persons.

Only last month, The Gleaner reported that a male teacher at a prominent high school in St Ann was arrested on allegations of sexual misconduct involving a boy.

Just weeks later, a teacher accused of repeatedly engaging in sex acts with underage female students at two high schools where he was employed was arrested on more than a dozen sex-related charges.

That report preceded an extradition request from the United States authorities for Northern Caribbean University lecturer Russell McLean, who has been linked by scientific evidence to sexual and other criminal offences in that country.

Williams said the vetting process for positions at academic institutions ought to be “a matter of routine” conducted by school boards.

“I’m calling on our boards. They are the governance structure in our schools to be diligent in terms of the selection of teachers and to deal promptly with those situations when they happen,” she told The Gleaner.

“Properly document them so that there is no question about the process; there’s no technicality that would cause the case to be thrown out.”

The minister said background checks are mandatory based on ministry policy, but it is not clear whether those include the requirement for a criminal record.

Ricardo Bennett, principal of Lacovia High School in St Elizabeth where the teacher taught prior to his sex conviction, told The Gleaner that the school’s board uses character references in its hiring process.

He said checks are made at previous places of employment listed on the applicant’s resume and that recruits are placed on one year’s probation.

“I don’t want to say that it ought to be mandatory, but I’d want to say that if there are concerns, I believe that schools can be given the right to request such,” he said Thursday when quizzed on the matter of criminal record.

Sex crimes against the nation’s children resulted in 5,748 arrests over the past 15 years.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Statistics and Information Management Unit confirmed that 99 per cent of those arrested were men.

It said in the last five and a half years, 1,886 people were arrested for having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16.

But most striking is that of those arrested within that period, only 134 were matters that reached the judiciary, according to Court Administration Division records.

 

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