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Teachers Fired By CPS Banned From Charters After Watchdog Report

By Heather Cherone | October 24, 2017 1:23pm | Updated on October 24, 2017 1:24pm
 The 30 charter schools that to do not use CPS to conduct background checks for job applicants have until Nov. 17 to agree to do so, CPS Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool said.
The 30 charter schools that to do not use CPS to conduct background checks for job applicants have until Nov. 17 to agree to do so, CPS Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool said.
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CHICAGO — Charter and contract schools no longer will be permitted to hire teachers and administrators fired by Chicago Public Schools officials for misconduct, CPS Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool announced Tuesday — hours after a report from the CPS inspector general put the issue in the spotlight.

Thirty-three charters and contract schools — which get taxpayer funding — hired 163 employees that had been dismissed by CPS and banned from being rehired, according to a report issued by CPS Inspector General Nicholas Schuler.

Three of those employees — who no longer work at a school — faced accusations of sexual abuse, Schuler's report found.

Twenty-two employees working at charter schools were accused of using corporal punishment against students or physically abusing them, Schuler's report found.

Ten of those employees — who had worked as managers or administrators for CPS — were accused of "falsifying or forging" documents. Another seven managers or administrators were accused of "theft, misappropriation of funds, fiscal mismanagement or waste of funds."

The report did not name any of the employees or the charter or contract schools were they worked.

There was no system in place to tell charter or contract schools whether the employee under consideration for hiring had been banned from being rehired by CPS, Schuler's report found.

The 30 charter schools that do not use CPS to conduct background checks for prospective employees have until Nov. 17 to agree to do so, Claypool told school operators in a letter sent Tuesday.

Those checks would flag prospective employees who faced misconduct allegations and were deemed ineligible to be rehired, CPS spokesman Michael Passman said.

"CPS will publicly release the names of any schools that decline to sign up on Monday, Nov. 20," Claypool wrote.

Kelley Quinn, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Network of Charter schools, said all charter schools are required to conduct background checks and did so in each case detailed by Schuler's report.

"We will work with our member schools to make certain that they take all appropriate actions to ensure high quality staff," Quinn stated. "We also look forward to working with the district to ensure charter public schools have timely access to the Do Not Hire list in the future."