Getting back to class

What was striking since the beginning of the debate over background checks for school personnel was the lack of specifics by the state about the program and the absolute certainty that it must go forward immediately. Now that Gov. Angus King has vetoed the Legislature’s attempt to limit the checks, teachers and other school staff have the difficult but essential job of putting the issue behind them and continuing with their professions.

Background checks and fingerprinting are not a civil liberties issue and they are not an accusation of wrongdoing. The session’s debate brought forth a half dozen examples of professions that require similar or more intrusive measures. And it isn’t as if school faculty members fail to understand that child molestation can happen at a school or why their careers make them likely subjects of the background checks.

Instead, the widespread protests blossomed from the state’s inability to articulate how this program would ward off criminal behavior, why its subjects were being forced to pay for it and why, if this was a matter of such urgency, the law arrived in 1996 with a four-year delay. From vague answers about the $49 fee to an unfortunate note instructing police to report uppity teachers in the fingerprint line, education officials throughout have had trouble understanding how highhanded the process appears to those affected. And because the officials did not produce examples of child molesters with criminal records being hired by Maine school systems, this intended layer of protection seemed arbitrary, even punitive.

Legislators and Education Department officials struggled hard, if not successfully, with alternative legislation all session and, if nothing else, their sincere desire to protect children emerged clearly. Except for removing the cost, there was no compromise Gov. King felt he could live with. The fingerprint law stays on the books and remains an unnecessary hassle for 99.9 percent of school personnel.

Teachers — and there were scores of them — who swore they would not continue teaching in Maine if the law remained now have to confront the choice of keeping their word or changing their minds. The sake of the children has been invoked too often in this debate to be used here, but make no mistake: You are needed.

You, along with students, parents and administrators, have built among the best record for academics in the nation. And you’ve stayed even after watching your profession get ripped at town meetings as residents complained about the school budget. You’ve stayed in Maine as more lucrative deals have been announced in southern New England. You’ve stayed as the state’s expectations have risen higher and higher, and you’ve met those challenges.

Don’t leave now over the clumsy handling of the fingerprint law. Maine may not have the most adroit bureaucrats in the land, but it is, overall, deeply appreciative of your dedication and the results of your work. Stay, if for no other reason, than to show a sense of priorities the state has yet to learn.