Officials with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools are going ahead with a plan to spend $30,000 on criminal-records checks for all employees even though one school-board member thinks that it is a waste of money.
"It still leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth," said Buddy Collins at last night's meeting of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board. "I think there are a lot of good employees faced with signing a document they are going to have a hard time signing because they know they haven't done anything."
Collins was referring to the plan to have all employees sign a release that will let the school system conduct a records check. School officials plan to send the releases to all 8,000 employees and 1,000 substitutes by Monday with the requirement that they sign the releases by Dec. 7.
Up until Dec. 7, employees also have a grace period to report any previously unreported criminal charges and convictions. Although employees could still be subject to disciplinary actions if school officials think that it is warranted, employees wouldn't be disciplined solely for not having already reported those charges and convictions.
The records checks come in the wake of the arrest Oct. 17 of Ralph David Surridge, 57, a teacher at Mineral Springs Middle School, on 10 counts of felony sexual misconduct and with possession of firearms by a felon.
When law-enforcement officers investigated the reports of sexual misconduct by Surridge, they turned up a 1985 conviction for embezzlement that had been missed when the school system did a background check before hiring him.
Because of that, school officials began talking about doing records checks on other employees to see whether anything else turned up.
Superintendent Don Martin has suspended Surridge without pay and recommended that school-board members dismiss him. They could vote to do that at their next regular meeting on Nov. 24.
kunderwood@wsjournal.com
727-7389
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement