Teacher testifies, resigns Fingerprint law angers Belfast High educator

AUGUSTA – An unswerving opponent of the state’s mandatory school employee fingerprinting law, Steven Smith initially had planned Wednesday just to give members of the Legislature’s Education Committee a piece of his mind. In addition, the 19-year teacher from Belfast Area High School also gave them his resignation.

Although he had not planned to retire for another 10 years, the social studies teacher proclaimed to the speechless panel of lawmakers that he would rather quit than submit to an FBI criminal background check. Quoting from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Stevens concluded that perhaps, like the poem’s title character, he too had become “Almost, at times, the Fool.”

“Perhaps I am a fool, for I have believed what I have taught Belfast students for the last 19 years; that individual rights are important, in fact, inalienable; that a citizen has responsibilities that secure those rights; and that democracy, in the end, provides liberty and justice for all,” Stevens said. “… I have tried to live by that creed as well as teach it. … Of course I am, and will be, bitter in my heart about being expelled from teaching on a matter of conscience. … I am proud I am resisting this witch hunt.”

Stevens was one of nearly a dozen residents Wednesday who had some members of the Education Committee squirming in their chairs as they considered what was supposed to be a minor technical bill clarifying the confidentiality provisions of the state’s year-old fingerprinting law. The measure was enacted to identify sex offenders and others with criminal histories who may have obtained jobs in Maine’s schools as teachers, bus drivers or institutional workers.

Earlier this year, lawmakers were surprised to learn that those confidentiality provisions barred the Maine State Police or state Department of Education from providing any information to the Legislature on what kind of results the fingerprinting law was producing. When several lawmakers threatened to yank the funding for the fingerprinting sessions and criminal background checks unless they received further information, state officials responded. Education Department staff, the Maine Attorney General’s Office, and several lawmakers crafted a bill that allows the release of aggregate information to the legislators for the fiscal years 1999 through 2001.

Under the proposed bill, which the committee is expected to review further later this month, lawmakers would be told how many school personnel had been processed, how many still await processing, and how many individuals are been denied a teaching certificate or determined to be ineligible for employment because of prior criminal histories.

The bill would not provide detailed information on what criminal activities had been uncovered as the result of the background check. Education officials said they were prohibited from releasing that information under the language in the law that safeguards the privacy of school employees.

Like many who addressed the Education Committee, Stevens emphasized that the state had proved it could not be entrusted with confidential information. He blamed the Maine State Police for revealing to the Appropriations Committee that 1,324 people had been fingerprinted in January. As he signed documents before the committee indicating he would not seek recertification, Stevens said even those questionnaires were flawed because the questions could reveal confidential information about the respondent.

“What we can do is forward your concerns about the recertification papers to the department, sir,” said Sen. Betty Mitchell, the Republican committee chairwoman from Etna.

“With all due respect, senator, nobody’s listening to me,” Stevens replied. “My school board can’t talk to me. You people want to hurry me through. It’s kind of frustrating.”

Although LD 1765 was limited to minor changes defining the release of information, nearly all those addressing the Education Committee used the hearing as a vehicle to express their contempt for the fingerprinting law. Judy Lucarelli was one of two people speaking in favor of the bill. As the deputy commissioner for the Department of Education, she believed the legislation should reveal enough information to allow the Legislature to determine how well the checks are working without compromising the individual reputations of those being processed.

“[It] does permit us to release enough information so the public can understand why we have stated that the law is working as intended,” she said.

The bill could be fast-tracked to become law within the next few weeks, giving legislators the information they need to determine whether the $2 million program is effective. Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, said he has a bill ready to go that would repeal the fingerprinting law should the aggregate results reveal that only a small number of school workers have been rejected as a result of the background checks.

“If they come back and tell me there’s 25 or 30 people who have been decertified because of the fingerprint law, then I’d have to say the program is doing what it’s designed to do,” Davis said. “If it’s something less, then we’ll move forward with repeal. There are more cost-effective ways of doing background checks for such a small number of people.”