April 4, 2007

SB 9 - School Safety Bill
Impact on Contractors

The Texas Senate has passed SB 9 by Senator Florence Shapiro. This bill has become known as the “School Safety Bill” for its efforts to protect Texas children from predators in the schools. SB 9 will require that all certified school employees undergo a criminal background check and be fingerprinted. Individuals who have been convicted of, or received deferred adjudication for, a sex offense or a Title 5 felony (assault charge) where the victim was younger than 18 not only would be prohibited from school employment, but also would be prohibited from being present in a school setting with children.

Contractors may be affected if their employees have direct contact with students on a regular basis. AGC Texas Building Branch has visited with Senator Shapiro’s staff on several occasions and we have been advised that it will not apply to a contractor’s employees who are in a secured area away from students. If an employee must leave the secured area on a periodic basis to work in an area where students are present, those employees will have to comply with the background check provisions. In situations where a contractor has a regular maintenance schedule with a district, the employees doing the maintenance check also will have to complete the background check. However, if there is an emergency service call, the individual responding to the call would not have to have completed the background check.

An individual will only have to go through the background check once. The information will be stored in a statewide database administered by DPS and made available to all schools. Thus, if an individual doing maintenance for XYZ school district gets another contract with ABC school district, the new school district will only need to check the central database to ascertain that the individual has passed the background check.

The penalty provisions in SB 9 are for the school district.

SB 9 has been referred to the House Public Education Committee where Representative Dan Branch will be its sponsor as it works its way through the house. AGC Texas Building Branch will work with Representative Branch to make sure there are no changes with unintended consequences for contractors. We will keep you informed as this legislation moves ahead.

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