School districts in Massachusetts have started fingerprinting teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and other employees for national background checks.
Massachusetts is the last state to fingerprint school employees to more fully search for past criminal activities, education officials said. If districts find any questionable information from the FBI reports, they could move to fire the employees.
The program was approved by the legislature and Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick more than a year ago, but the FBI noted the law failed to reference the appropriate federal statutes necessary for the agency to run the background checks, prompting revisions.