Exclusive: Flaws found in Iowa teacher background checks

Educators with serious criminal convictions or records of professional misconduct are making their way into Iowa classrooms or have mistakenly been omitted from a national database of disciplined teachers used to warn schools in other states of their wrongdoing, a USA TODAY NETWORK/Des Moines Register investigation has found.

At least 103 Iowa teacher disciplinary actions since 1990 were not listed in the database, the investigation found. And there were other errors found in the data, including information about Brent Michael Romer, a teacher in Iowa's CAM School District, who was convicted and sentenced in 2010 to 30 years in prison on charges related to multiple sex acts with teenage girls.

The Iowa data incorrectly listed his date of birth, resulting in an 18-year difference in the age of the teacher and the person it showed had been convicted of the sex crimes. Such a disparity could have kept his criminal record from being detected by a potential employer during a background check.

The investigation's findings have already triggered action: Iowa officials, after confirming the missing information, have ordered a full internal audit. An independent third party will also complete an external audit of how information is shared with the national database, said Duane Magee, director of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, the state teacher licensing agency.

“What I can tell you is, we are focused on protecting students,” Magee told the Register. “Our procedures call for us to put licensed sanctions in (the national database), and we want 100 percent compliance.”

Among the key Iowa findings:

• NO BACKGROUND CHECK DONE: The district in which Romer worked acknowledged it had conducted no criminal background search when hiring him. He had completed nearly five years of probation for a Missouri theft conviction just months before he began his work as an Iowa teacher, records show.
• CRIMINAL RECORDS NOT SHARED: When a school district checks with the Board of Educational Examiners on the status of a teacher's license, the board is allowed to disclose only whether an individual is licensed. A state law prohibits the board from sharing criminal records of licensed teachers with districts. Critics contend the inability to share the information is an obstacle to protecting children.
• SCANT CHECKS ON SOME PERSONNEL: Iowa schools are required to conduct background checks on all employees under a law that went into effect in 2014. However, for unlicensed employees, the law requires schools to check only Iowa’s free courts online database. Criminal records in federal courts or courts in other states are not listed.

Iowa is not the only state falling short on safeguards intended to protect students.

The joint investigation by USA TODAY NETWORK news organizations, including the Register, revealed fundamental defects in teacher screening systems in almost every state.

“This all seems like a big disconnect to me,” said Melinda Ellwanger, whose son graduated last year from Des Moines’ Lincoln High School, where a teacher resigned last month after being arrested for the third time in his career on charges of indecent exposure or harassment. “We’re talking about people who have contact with our children.”

Iowa lawmakers: Tighten school background checks

Miscommunication, confusion

District and state officials generally said they were unaware of issues concerning lack of information about teachers' criminal records before the Register's inquiries. They blamed the problems on miscommunication, filing errors and confusion surrounding background checks.

Officials for the CAM schools, for example, believe that no criminal background check was done before the district hired Romer in 2000 because he had just received his teaching license. Superintendent Casey Berlau said officials at that time likely assumed a criminal history would have prevented Romer from being  licensed to teach.

Berlau didn't work for the district, serving Cumberland, Anita and Massena schools, at the time of Romer’s 2010 sex convictions. Even if the district had conducted a check in 2000, he's unsure whether Romer’s criminal past would have been detected or would have kept the district from hiring him.

Romer was 20 when he was placed on probation in March 1996 for the Missouri theft. The details of the crime are unknown because Missouri sealed those records following his probation discharge in July 2000. Romer began working as a substitute teacher for CAM  schools three months later. The record of his probation is now public only because it is part of an “interstate compact” resulting from his current prison record.

Romer, who remains in an Iowa prison, declined to be interviewed by the Register.

Sealed records are frequently seen as a way to help people who have served their time to resume life without forever suffering the consequences of their crimes. The Iowa law that prohibits the teacher licensing board from sharing criminal records with schools was intended to protect the offender's privacy and to avoid misinterpretation of the data, said Adam DeCamp, a special agent with the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

But sorting out an individual's right to rehabilitation and privacy versus the public's right to safety becomes complicated when the person seeks a job working with children, Berlau said.

“I side with those who say this is not just an ordinary job. It’s contact with minors,” Berlau said. “This seems like a big disconnect to me. I don’t understand why there would be a law protecting that information.”

Broken discipline tracking systems let teachers flee troubled pasts

Iowa launches review

The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners since 1995 has reported virtually all licensure disciplinary actions — including letters of reprimand, suspensions, voluntary surrenders and permanent revocations — to the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification Clearinghouse, better known as the NASDTEC.

Some of the sanctions reported to the national database are for lesser offenses, such as teachers who fail to honor contracts and quit before the school year ends. But most sanctions are far more serious, including teacher-student romantic relationships, physical abuse and failure to protect children's health and safety.

The 50-state clearinghouse is intended as a way to prevent educators who have faced professional sanctions from jumping to districts in other states without their potential new employer learning about their past.

The database is restricted to agencies that certify and discipline educators but was obtained from multiple states by the USA TODAY NETWORK. It compared that database with the disciplinary actions taken in all 50 states since 1990, finding that thousands of names were absent.

That cross-check turned up just over 100 Iowa cases since 1990 that Iowa officials believe were erroneously omitted from the national database. State officials have contacted the Iowa Attorney General's office for further review and will add those cases to the national database once any possible legal questions are resolved, Magee said.

“We know this is a human enterprise,” Magee said. “Sometimes mistakes are made.”

How to look up the background of teachers in every state

Des Moines teacher's troubled past

Questions about the adequacy of teacher background checks surfaced again last month after Michael Madson, a teacher at Des Moines’ Lincoln High School, was arrested.

West Des Moines police say Madson, 60, exposed himself to a woman at Valley West Mall. He was immediately placed on administrative leave and resigned a few days following his arrest on a charge of indecent exposure.

Before working at Lincoln, Madson was an economics and computer teacher at Waterloo’s West High School from 1988 to 2001.

In 1994, Madson was arrested in Black Hawk County on a charge of indecent exposure after he was seen wearing nothing but a T-shirt in a hotel lobby. He said that he had removed his trunks to avoid getting the hotel lobby’s chair wet, court records show. Madson pleaded guilty in 1995 to a lesser charge of trespassing after a mistrial and a hung jury failed to decide the indecent exposure charge. He was reinstated as a teacher at the Waterloo district after he appealed to the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board.

Then, in 2001, Madson was arrested again, this time on a harassment charge stemming from allegations that he was peeking at a 14-year-old girl in a tanning booth. That charge was ultimately dismissed, and he soon resigned from his teaching job, according to archived stories published by the Waterloo Courier.

Des Moines School District spokeswoman Amanda Lewis said the district was aware of the 1995 trespass conviction but that Madson "offered a reasonable explanation" on his application. That explanation was "significantly different" than the wet-chair explanation he initially gave law enforcement in justifying the incident, she said. But there is no evidence in the file that school officials investigated. 

And there was nothing in Madson's personnel file to show the district was aware of the 2001 harassment charge that was dismissed, Lewis said. If the district were to learn of such charges against an employee today, further inquiries would be made, she said.

A school principal and a teacher in Waterloo both offered good references and rated Madson superior or above average in 18 out of 23 responses to a questionnaire, Lewis said. None of their responses rated him below average, she added.

"While giving an inflated or inaccurate recommendation might be to help an employee, that practice needs to stop," said Anne Sullivan, Des Moines schools' human resources chief. "To do otherwise is unfair to the school district and potentially harmful to students."

Des Moines schools refused to release the names of those who provided references for Madson or copies of reference letters, citing laws that protect personnel records.

Bev Smith, assistant superintendent for human resources for Waterloo schools, said Des Moines never requested a formal reference before hiring Madson. Smith, who worked in the position in 2001, said all formal references come through her office.

“No one from the district called me or anyone in my office to do a reference on that person,” Smith said.

Madson did not return calls last week seeking comment.

See how your state does tracking teacher discipline

THE IOWA GRADE

Despite loopholes or oversights in background checks and teacher disciplinary reporting, Iowa remained among the top states in the nation for its procedures and actions related to educator oversight, the USA TODAY NETWORK concluded.

The review is based on a set of standards in specific areas that include how a state completes background checks, transparency in providing the public with information about teacher disciplinary actions, adequacy of reporting laws and how it shares information about disciplinary actions with other states.

The score does not reflect all problems found during the investigation, such as Iowa's law prohibiting the state’s teacher licensing board from sharing criminal data with school districts.

Iowa received a score of 88 of 100 points in the review and was assigned a “B” grade. That placed it eighth in the country, and ahead of all its neighboring states. The top score went to Vermont, which had a total score of 93 points.

The report gave 22 states and Washington, D.C., a "D" or "F" grade. That included Missouri, where no information about teacher disciplinary actions was available online. Misconduct was often not shared with other states.