Act 4: Impact on Background Check Renewal Period & Process
On Feb. 16, 2016, Governor Tom Wolf signed into law Act
4, which included important amendments to Section 111 of the School Code
concerning background checks.
Prior to Act 4 of 2016, background checks more than 12 months
old could not be used for prospective school staff and service providers;
however, Act 153 of 2015 amending the Child Protective Services Law (CPSL) required
Section 111 checks be renewed every 60 months. The passing of Act 4 aligns the
School Code with the new CPSL requirement and permits any of the three required
background checks to be used by potential applicants for up to 5 years (i.e.,
60 months).
Currently, background
check results are stored in the PA Safe Check Systems for five years. School administrators are required to login
to their PA Safe Check account to review applicant’s results. Applicants are responsible for providing the
UEID #’s to the school administrators.
Under the current PA
Safe Check system, school administrators will have the ability to review CHRI
reports from IDEMIA for up to five years.
However, if an applicant has an unofficial copy of the CHRI Report from
Cogent, school administrators are permitted to accept an applicant’s paper copy
of Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) reports that are between one and
five years old.
In addition to the unofficial CHRI report, an
applicant must complete and submit to a prospective employer the PDE Form 6004 (PDF), required by Section 111(j)(1) of the School Code,
indicating that the applicant has not been disqualified from employment.