Concord
The bill was sponsored by Claremont lawmakers after a Stevens High School math teacher was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old student, but the state teachers union raised privacy concerns with the initial legislation.
State representatives on a voice vote unanimously approved the senate-backed bill but, instead of sending it on to be signed into law, referred it to the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. It’s a move that state Reps. John Cloutier, D-Claremont, and Ray Gagnon, D-Claremont, and committee Chairman John Tholl, R-Whitefield, said they didn’t see coming.
“It’s a surprise to us,” Cloutier said while standing with Gagnon outside the House chamber.
Tholl said he isn’t quite sure why the bill was referred to his committee, which typically looks at legislation involving criminal penalties. If proposed legislation could result in an individual being charged with a crime, for example, his committee would review it.
“At first glance,” he said, the bill doesn’t appear to involve penalties.
If his assumption is correct, he said, he will send the bill to the Clerk’s Office, a move that could put it on Gov. Maggie Hassan’s desk by the end of the month.
The Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee could take up the bill as soon as today.
Having another committee review the bill was surprising and unsettling news for SAU 6 Superintendent Middleton McGoodwin, Claremont Mayor Charlene Lovett and the mother of the victim. All three were present in the House gallery for the vote.
“Every step of the way something has happened unexpectedly,” a frustrated Lovett, herself a former lawmaker, said after the hearing.
Christopher LeBlanc in May 2014 pleaded guilty to having sexually assaulted the girl earlier that year, and after he did so, it was learned LeBlanc had prior convictions on his record that McGoodwin wasn’t privy to at the time of LeBlanc’s hiring.
McGoodwin and the victim’s mother previously said LeBlanc had pleaded at least one felony charge down to a misdemeanor, which didn’t show up on a criminal records background check.
Under current New Hampshire law, school district officials are notified of a criminal conviction only if a prospective employee has been convicted of a felony crime that falls into one of 18 different categories. Misdemeanor convictions, as well as felony convictions that are not in one of the categories, aren’t reported to the school district.
This bill would close that loophole, providing a superintendent or chief executive officer of a public school with a complete picture of a person’s background.
Since the incident at Stevens High School, nothing in the law has changed. That was upsetting for McGoodwin, who said he was certain that what happened in Claremont is happening to students in other New Hampshire schools.
He said it is crucial for a superintendent to know a prospective employee’s complete background history, not just bits and pieces of it.
“The intent of this is to not disrespect the privacy of adults,” McGoodwin said. “The intent of this is to ensure that the men and women we are hiring are the men and women that we want in our schools.”
The National Education Association in May expressed privacy concerns about the legislation and urged lawmakers to take a closer look. The legislation — proposed in the House at the time — stalled shortly after. It was revived in its current form as a Senate bill earlier this year.
The language is similar, with subtle differences. For example, the House bill as written required a district to retain a copy of the record check in the teacher’s personnel file. The legislation now says that the record must be destroyed within 30 days.
New Hampshire NEA President Scott McGilvray said that tweak satisfied one of the union’s main privacy concerns.
Since expressing its initial concerns, the union has refrained from “getting in the middle of this bill,” McGilvray said, noting that privacy had to take a back seat to student safety.
“We don’t want a person who shouldn’t be in a school around our kids,” he said.
By Wednesday afternoon, the confusion of the morning legislative session appeared to have settled for McGoodwin, Lovett and the victim’s mother.
But all said they still were wary of the bill’s future.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” McGoodwin said. “There have been so many stumbling blocks with this.”
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.