Chelsea Schneider, Emma Kate Fittes and Meghan Holden

chelsea.schneider@indystar.com

Indiana's decision to delegate the screening of prospective teachers to local school districts is full of holes that sometimes allow sexual predators and other problematic instructors into the classroom.

An analysis by USA TODAY Network with IndyStar shows the policy remains in place even though school districts don’t have direct access to NASDTEC, a national clearinghouse of teacher discipline cases. Only states can gain direct access to that data.

Also, teachers can receive a license in Indiana before a detailed vetting of their background is completed. School districts aren't required to complete a deep background check until after teachers have been in the classroom for three months.

Broken discipline tracking systems let teachers flee troubled pasts

But possibly more problematic, state law doesn’t prohibit school districts from entering into confidentiality agreements, a practice that gained attention with the high-profile teacher misconduct case at Park Tudor School. Those agreements can be forged before a district cuts ties with a teacher, meaning possible misconduct can stay hidden. It’s a practice that a statewide school association warns against, and a local child abuse prevention advocate says state lawmakers should review.

Some of those shortcomings resulted in Indiana being among only 12 states and the District of Columbia to receive an "F" for the screening of teachers, according to the USA TODAY analysis. Seven states, including Vermont and Alabama, received an “A.”

Simply put: The analysis found bad actors have successfully become licensed in Indiana despite the state’s background check requirements. Also, the state’s lax reporting to NASDTEC, the national database, could make it easier for educators accused of misconduct to move without notice to another school corporation.

Indiana Department of Education officials say they immediately report teachers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked to NASDTEC.

But an analysis of Department of Education records shows that since 2013, the agency has failed to report about 30 percent of those cases to NASDTEC. A vast majority of cases left off the database involved sexual misconduct allegations.

How USA TODAY audited the country's broken systems for tracking teacher discipline

Cases not reported include:

• Corey Greenwood, a former Indianapolis Public Schools administrator, whose teaching license was revoked in 2014 after he admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student.

• Darren Williams, a former teacher in the Lafayette Catholic school system, who pleaded guilty to a child pornography charge and whose license was revoked in 2013.

Going back further, the analysis found at least 20 other instances since 1996 of teachers whose licenses were either revoked or suspended that were not reported to the clearinghouse. One of the cases not reported to NASDTEC involved a kidnapping that resulted in death.

The issue lies with no federal mandate to report to NASDTEC, or lack of a nationwide collection of data on teachers who abuse students, said Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct and Exploitation.

“The database is only as good as the information that goes into it — and again, it’s all voluntary,” Miller said.

Daniel Altman, Department of Education spokesman, said the agency was updating NASDTEC to reflect cases that should have been — but weren't — reported under the current administration. Altman said the department also will review the older files to determine whether they should be reported.

"We are taking a look at it and ensuring everything we have appropriate documentation on gets reported," Altman said.

Miller said states need cross-checks and balances. She said Hoosier teachers should go through a background check at licensure. Currently, teachers are required to provide some background information when applying for their certification, but it’s not as detailed as the expanded criminal history check they go through once they are employed.

“This is a position of trust, and every precaution should be taken when you are placing people in authority over children,” Miller said. “It definitely provides a loophole for them to sneak through.”

Indiana leaves background checks up to local school districts and their vendors but spells out in state law exactly what those screens should include.

Issues with confidentiality agreements

The analysis comes as one of Indianapolis’ most prominent schools is reeling from the case of Kyle Cox. The former Park Tudor basketball coach is charged with coercing a 15-year-old student to send him explicit images. Before his resignation, Cox signed a confidentiality agreement with the school, but the case became public after law enforcement began investigating.

Indiana doesn’t have a law governing those agreements, even for public school corporations, according to Julie Slavens, an attorney for the Indiana School Boards Association.

“We advise not to use it,” Slavens said, “because a lot of times, just as a general rule, a confidentiality agreement limits what you can say. Well, by state law there’s some information that has to be disclosed, so obviously that information can’t be subject to a confidentiality agreement. With a public entity, there’s not much information that is confidential by law that you could cover in a confidentiality agreement.”

Slavens also said that some incidents are required to be reported to the Department of Education, such as serious crimes. State law expressly requires school districts to report to the Department of Education any teacher who has been convicted of a crime, but that doesn’t bar a school district from providing the information about an arrest or misconduct earlier.

Slavens said the handful of confidentiality agreements that she can recall involved administrators. She said sometimes an agreement can be initiated by an outgoing employee if he or she is worried about a bad reference.

“I’ve never understood why a school would agree to it,” she said.

Sharon Pierce, CEO of The Villages and Prevent Child Abuse Indiana, said lawmakers should study the issue.

"I think in terms of child safety, that is an area that we could work together as a state," Pierce said, "so that we really are diligent about protecting children."

State officials defend Indiana's checks

State law does require teachers, substitutes and other school personnel to submit to a background check as they are being hired by a school district. Yet the screen doesn’t need to be finalized before they step into a classroom — just at least three months after they are hired.

State education officials and lawmakers defend Indiana’s system, saying background checks are stronger now than in the past and should catch any applicants with troublesome histories.

“We do not hear complaints or suggestions from public school folks that the system isn’t working now,” said Risa Regnier, assistant superintendent of school support services for the Department of Education.

Background checks are best left to local control — a concept that most education policy is centered on, said Jill Shedd, an assistant dean for teacher education at Indiana University.

“I respect that school corporations have an opportunity to identify what is important for their corporation and their community," Shedd said.

The screens are typically done by a private company of the district’s choice. Danville-based Safe Hiring Solutions CEO Mike McCarty said his company conducts the checks for about half of the state’s schools.

The company searches applicants’ records dating back 10 years or more, uses several local, state and national criminal, driving, credit and sex offender databases and conducts extensive checks on all their names and aliases, according to its website.

In 2009, the state began requiring schools to do an expanded criminal history check, searching records in every jurisdiction a person has lived. Lawmakers added to the criteria local school districts need to check last year, requiring a verification of an applicant's identity. It’s an improvement from past practices, in which background checks were more limited and didn’t require a review of out-of-state records.

The Department of Education said it will run an educator through NASDTEC if it has information about an action against an applicant's license in another state, according to a response to USA TODAY's survey.

Still, some bad actors have gotten through — at least initially — including a man who had been featured on NBC Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator.”

• Stanley Kendall served as a substitute teacher for three districts in Northern Indiana until residents saw him on a rerun episode of “To Catch a Predator.” Kendall was charged with online solicitation of a minor after being caught in a sting operation in Texas for an episode that aired in 2007. He was never prosecuted after the charges were dropped on a technicality. Texas revoked his teaching license, but when he applied for a substitute license in Indiana in 2014, he didn’t disclose the revocation, and it wasn’t caught. But after residents saw him on the show, they notified the district, which in turn notified the Department of Education. His Indiana license was revoked in 2014, and he is reported in NASDTEC.

• In Avon, an application for a substitute teacher was accidentally approved even though the person had an out-of-state criminal conviction for sexual battery. However, the mistake was caught before Barry Teague served in a classroom, and Avon Community Schools officials say he was never employed by the district. A Department of Education database indicates Teague lied on his license application. Teague's license was revoked in 2014, and he is reported in NASDTEC.

Despite the error in offering Teague a substitute license, a spokeswoman for Avon schools says the current state policy works.

“We feel the current practice of conducting background checks at the local level is effective,” Stacey Moore, community relations coordinator for Avon Community Schools, said in a statement. “In this case, the applicant was never employed by Avon, and we are not aware that he was employed by any Indiana school district.”

In the “To Catch a Predator” case, Steve Clason, superintendent of Whitko Community Schools, said the district conducted a background check on Kendall before he entered the classroom, but nothing showed up because he hadn’t been prosecuted.

Kendall was in the classroom for a few days before the school found out about his past.

“How do you get information about people who weren’t prosecuted?” Clason said. “It’s more of an issue of what data is being put into the system.”

Kendall isn’t the only teacher whose past doesn’t show up on a background check. Some teachers included in data provided to USA TODAY and IndyStar by the Department of Education still have their license because the cases are pending, or they faced allegations that rose to the level of them being placed on administrative leave but didn’t result in criminal charges. In a few cases, teachers left their district as a result of the alleged behavior, but because no action was taken, they still have their license and a clean criminal history.

Efforts by IndyStar to contact Williams and Teague were not immediately successful.

An attorney for Greenwood said his client, “has been working hard to make amends for his actions and, as should be the case, he will never teach again, not in Indiana and not anywhere.”

Kendall told WFAA-8 in Dallas, “TEA (Texas Education Agency) pulled my license when they really didn't have grounds to, but they did, and I let it happen because I didn't have money to fight it. Teachers don't make a lot of money in Texas.”

Issue for the legislature

Altman argued that the Department of Education, under the supervision of current Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, has done its job in holding teachers accountable. He noted that during Ritz’s time in office she has revoked more licenses than the previous administration. Records show 26 licenses were revoked under former state schools chief Tony Bennett, compared with the 30 revocations that have occurred to date under Ritz.

He said questions about the strength of Indiana’s background checks are ones for the General Assembly.

“That’s obviously an issue for the legislature to determine,” Altman said.

State Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton, said no one has presented data to lawmakers that show state-level screenings are better than what Indiana is doing now. Last year, Thompson authored the bill that added criteria to the state’s background checks.

“If you bring me data to show that’s superior, of course, I would be open to that,” Thompson said. "I want the best.”

USA TODAY Network contributed to this story.

Call IndyStar reporter Chelsea Schneider at (317) 444-6077. Follow her on Twitter: @indystarchelsea.

Call Muncie Star Press reporter Emma Kate Fittes at (765) 213-5845. Follow her on Twitter:@EmmaKate_TSP.

Call Lafayette Journal & Courier reporter Meghan Holden at (765) 420-5202. Follow her on Twitter: @MeghanHolden.

How were states evaluated?

The USA TODAY Network/IndyStar evaluation scored each state based on 10 criteria. States that scored well made background checks the responsibility of the state, had all licensing applicants checked in NASDTEC and reported all discipline to the national clearinghouse. The nationwide analysis found that background checks left to the state level were stronger and more consistent because of inconsistencies that could occur at the local level.