CRIMINAL RECORDS COST 2 TEACHERS THEIR JOBS

Passaic Firings, One Pending In Atlantic City, In Accord With State
Law

Two school teachers have been fired and a third is expected to be
after an Asbury Park Press database search found they had criminal
records that disqualified them from school employment.

Two Passaic teachers were fired this week, Superintendent Robert
Holster said. An Atlantic City teacher also is expected to be terminated.

The state Department of Education sent letters last week to request
the employees be fired after state officials independently confirmed
the criminal convictions provided by the Press.

The Atlantic City teacher, Nina Chavis, 42, was convicted of a
child-abuse charge in 1999, court records show. She could not be
reached for comment, and school officials were unavailable because of
the district's spring break. Chavis was hired in 1997.

Both Passaic elementary school teachers denied having the
illegal-drug criminal convictions in interviews last week.

Court records show Jason E. Hawes, 37, a School Number 5
special-education teacher in the Passaic County city, was sentenced
in 1993 for manufacturing and distributing drugs, then was hired 10
years later. Holster said he informed Hawes of his firing Monday.

Holster said he did not know why the conviction did not show up on a
background check.

Hawes again denied the charges in his meeting but otherwise said
little, Holster said.

Anthony T. Wade, 42, a School Number 11 basic-skills teacher, was
sentenced in Bergen County for cocaine possession in 2001, court
records show. He had been hired by Passaic in 1998.

Holster said city police and the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office
quickly inform him when a staff member has been arrested. He said
other law enforcement offices are not as quick to report an arrest,
and he said an automatic reporting system should be in place.

"I don't think they recognize the potential danger of allowing people
with criminal backgrounds in the schools -- whether it's drugs or a
child predator," Holster said.

Holster said he wants to perform background checks on all district
personnel routinely, but the local teachers union has so far balked
at the idea.

"There should be something where every five years of service,
everyone should go through a background check," Holster said. "There
could be (sexual) predators."

Department of Education spokesman Jon Zlock said of 14 names
submitted by the Press, convictions for eight employees did not rise
to the level of disqualifying them for school employment.

All school employees must have background checks before they are
hired and when they take new jobs in other districts, Zlock said.

The state performed 72,000 background checks last year, and opened
2,000 investigations as a result of those checks, Zlock said.

The state does not check current employees and does not cross-match
employee databases with criminal conviction databases, Zlock said. He
said the department would consider making such checks in the future.

In addition, fingerprints for 209,000 local school employees,
obtained after Feb. 21, 2003, when a new state law took effect, are
stored in a State Police database. If an employee in the database is
arrested and fingerprinted, the employer is notified.

If there is a mistake in a criminal record that has disqualified an
employee, the employee can appeal the decision to the state. However,
barring a mistake in the record, there is little recourse for such
employees, Zlock said.

"The law is the law," Zlock said. "A disqualifying offense is a
disqualifying offense."