Report finds Montgomery County Public Schools failed to monitor thousands of criminal histories since 2019

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now) — A recent report found that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) failed to properly background check thousands of employees, volunteers and staff members prior to their start date.

The Montgomery County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report revealed that the school system is not monitoring criminal histories for all employees, not ensuring criminal history checks are conducted for contractors and volunteers prior to starting work and the report also showed that not all people who work with students have undergone a Child Protective Services (CPS) check.

“To find out that there are people in the school [who] haven’t even been properly vetted is mindboggling,” MCPS parent Dawn Iannaco-Hahn said.

The report determined that more than 12,000 MCPS employees do not have their criminal histories regularly monitored. The school division began using the FBI’s Rap Back Service in January 2019 as a way to monitor new employees’ criminal history.

“My initial thought is, how did this fall through the cracks like that?” MCPS parent Rami Kandel said. “I mean, protecting our children is among the most important things that MCPS should be doing, and clearly, numerous people took their eyes off the ball that allowed this to happen.”

In November 2024, MCPS reported that 12,655 employees were not yet enrolled and hadn’t received a criminal history check since 2019. Some volunteers also reportedly didn’t undergo a criminal history check, according to the report.

The school division responded to this finding by reiterating that every employee completed an initial criminal background check before being cleared to work; they cited past administrations as the reason behind the failed upkeep of post-hire monitoring.

“My kids are older, but if I was the parent of a kindergarten student, younger elementary, I would be far more upset because those kids don’t have the same awareness and verbal skills to say what’s going on,” Iannaco-Hahn said.

There is also no formal procedure in place for how MCPS should handle a situation if a background check on someone comes back with a criminal history. Kandel shared his thoughts on how he believes it should be handled.

“Remove that person from the school,” he said, “the teacher from the classroom, the administrator from the school. Whoever it is, remove them from the school and make sure that the students are not affected negatively by whatever this person has done.”

MCPS Superintendent Dr. Thomas W. Taylor, Ed.D., responded to the OIG report in a statement.

Nothing is more important to this school system than our duty of care for the students we serve and the families who entrust their children to MCPS. Our team is already implementing our action plan to close these gaps. While we have concerns with the Inspector General’s report, the underlying issues it raises should have been addressed years ago. This work is our focus, it is important, and it will be done.
Dr. Thomas W. Taylor, Ed.D. Statement

Additionally, MCPS is supposed to submit a Child Protective Services (CPS) query request at the time of hire for anyone who may have unsupervised access to students.

The report found that 4,900 individuals did not have initial CPS queries made.

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich found these findings to be “very concerning.” The Department of Health and Human Services was asked to help establish a timeline to process the backlog of background checks, Elrich said.

“These lapses are unacceptable and must be addressed immediately,” Elrich stated in a Monday release.