How to do a background check
Safety first! Anything Academic strongly encourages anyone wishing to hire a teacher or tutor to run a background check. Whether you are hiring a teacher or tutor for a few hours a day or full time you need to know exactly who is working for you. Small and private learning pods are an excellent alternative to traditional schools, but before you hire a teacher, you should run a background check just as a hiring school system does for all school employees. It is important to hire the right person as children will spend hours alone with a teacher. You trust teachers with the minds and safety of children, so it’s important to hire responsible and qualified people. A simple background check will reassure you that your child is safe in the custody of the teacher or tutor.
What is a background check?
A background check is a process to verify that a person is who they claim to be. You can use background checks to look at a person’s criminal record, education, employment history, and other past activities in order to confirm their validity. An employment background check involves a review of a person’s commercial, criminal, employment, and even financial records. You can conduct the background check yourself or even hire a third party to check someone’s background.
If you decide to use a third party to check someone’s background, you must first notify them in writing and get their written authorization. However, if you are simply conducting inquiries on your own, then you do not have to ask for the candidate’s permission. For instance, you don’t need the consent of the person to call their former employer.
How to do a background check
Background and reference checking are two of the most important parts of the private teacher hiring process. You can conduct a background check yourself and the following pointers will help you in the process.
Google Search
Once you’ve settled on a list of candidates to interview, run their name through Google to see what comes up. It is a free and easy way to check any disqualifying bits of information about the person. You can come across news articles that mention the candidate, as well as their social media profiles. But this is not necessarily a comprehensive way to gather information about the candidate. Depending upon a person’s age and personal preferences, you may not find any internet presence at all.
Check Social Media Profiles
Almost everyone uses some type of social media platform these days, especially the group of teachers who are just entering the workforce today. Social media is a serious factor in hiring decisions. You can get a glimpse of the person’s life and even cross check a lot of information on their resume. You could try going through the candidate’s Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram accounts to get an impression of the type of person who will be influencing your child. This should never be thought of as an invasion of someone’s privacy. Social media profiles are just that, social. Nearly every employer demands access to them and you should not be any different.
Verify Personal and Professional References
You can contact the personal references given by the candidate, but be aware that it might give you a filtered view of the candidate. After all, they don’t have a professional reputation on the line, so they can sometimes stretch the truth. It’ll be better to get in touch with the previous employer. Checking professional references should be your last step before you offer a candidate a job because
● Checking references is time-consuming.
● You don’t want to take up someone’s time if something else in the hiring process would disqualify the candidate.
● It respects the candidate’s privacy and you don’t want to expose potential secrets until you are sure you want to make an offer.
Verify Education and Credentials
Before you offer a teaching position, you must verify their education and credentials. Don’t just take the candidate’s word that they completed a degree or earned their teaching license, even if they show you the diploma or certificate. Forgeries aren’t common but they happen.
Call the admission’s office of whatever schools or programs the candidate lists on their resume. Verify all the credentials of the candidate with such office.
Anything Academic provides information and direct links from your personal student dashboard on how to verify your teachers credentials as easily as possible.
Use a Third-Party Screening Company
A proper background check considers many factors, like criminal records, workers’ compensation claims, driving violations, and credit. You have to consider all those variables in a sensitive school environment. You may not be able to conduct all this research on your own, so it can be helpful to hire services of a third party. Such screening services can run detailed background checks involving
● Social Security Number Verification
● Felony convictions over the past 7 years
● Sex crime convictions over at least the past 7 years
● Misdemeanor convictions over the past 3 years for crimes of violence or crimes involving possible harm to children.
However while running a background check, make sure you do not access any information that the law of your state does not allow. In most cases information regarding age, race, nationality or sexual preference cannot be considered while running a background check.
Anything Academic strives to make this process as easy as possible. We have partnered with the following companies to provide background checks:
Again, we cannot stress enough the need to have a background check on anyone who will be in your home and especially someone working with your children.
*Anything academic does not employ any Providers and are not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any Patron, Provider, or other user of the Site or Services. Patrons are responsible for compliance with all applicable employment and other laws in connection with any employment relationship they establish. Resources and information above is given simply for general information purposes.