Commissioner says background check system for Vermont’s educators must be more rigorous
By Armando Vilaseca, Vermont Commissioner of Education
The events of the last few weeks have rocked the educational community, as the news broke that a Vermont educator had allegedly committed one of the vilest acts imaginable. This heartbreaking news has had a profound impact on everyone in our state, but most importantly the students and families directly impacted by this tragedy.
I am saddened as well by the impact this incident has had on the public trust of Vermont educators. The allegations have cast a cloud over all educators who work tirelessly caring for and teaching our children.
This alleged abuse, as repugnant as it is, is also forcing us to address some of the shortcomings of our current system. With this in mind, I want to make some points perfectly clear to parents, students, educators and administrators:
• Any time a superintendent or principal reports an educator to the Department for Children and Families (DCF), they must also report this suspicion of misconduct to the Department of Education; this is currently not clear.
• The commissioner of DCF and I are working on a Memorandum of Understanding to ensure that any time DCF gets a complaint on an individual who is an educator, they will share this complaint with us upon receipt.
• The Department of Education can receive a complaint from anyone at any time when they have reasonable cause to suspect educator misconduct, including inappropriate contact with students. Superintendents have a mandatory reporting requirement under state statute to do so.
• I want to require hiring superintendents to contact former employers to ask specifically if there were any disciplinary actions or separation agreements between them and their former employee.
• When asked, school districts should share separation agreements with prospective employers without fear of lawsuit.
• I want to require all prospective teaching candidates to sign a waiver prior to being appointed that they agree that any former employer can be contacted and speak about that person without fear of retribution or lawsuit.
I need to be clear that there will continue to be protections to ensure that innocent educators are not slandered or denied employment based on undocumented rumors. However, what this recent event has clearly identified is that we need to tighten our system of reference checks to allow for documented information on a candidate to be shared with prospective employers, as well as provide clearer guidance to school administrators about the types of incidents that need to be reported to the department.
Parents and students need to be able to trust the individual at the head of the classroom. Parents must stay involved in their children’s lives. They must pay attention to and talk to their kids about their relationships with adults, teachers or otherwise.
I am in the process of reviewing the case of Shaun Bryer and the series of events leading to his arrest to see what else we can learn from this tragedy. In reviewing this message, it is clear to me that even if all these steps were followed, this alleged abuse would still have occurred.
Regardless of the systems in place, an individual can fail their students and their community. If convicted, Bryer violated the trust the public put in him and in all educators. We must work together to rebuild that trust, and must be ever vigilant regarding the safety and well-being of our children.
