By Adam Pagnucco.
In a new report sure to attract massive public interest, Inspector General Megan Davey Limarzi has found that MCPS is not monitoring criminal histories of all its employees. Specifically, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) wrote: “During this review we found MCPS has more than 12,000 current employees who have outdated criminal history checks and approximately 4,900 individuals who have not undergone a CPS (child protective services) check and may have access to children.”
The OIG begins with this description of the background check process.
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The Maryland Annotated Code (MD Code), Education Article,§ 6-113, states that schools may not knowingly hire or retain any individual who has been convicted of certain criminal offenses, to include specific crimes of a sexual nature, including child sex abuse, and any crime defined in the MD Code, Criminal Law Article,§ 14-101. The MD Code, Family Law Articles§ 5-551 and 5-552, require that school systems conduct criminal history checks of prospective employees and certain contractors to help identify individuals that may be prohibited from having unsupervised access to children. MCPS also conducts Child Protective Services (CPS) checks for applicants, contractors, and certain volunteers to screen for other concerning behaviors that may also make the individual ineligible for positions with access to students. Additionally, MCPS regulation IRB-RA, Volunteers in Schools, requires certain volunteers to undergo criminal history checks and complete the online training course, Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN). It is also MCPS’s practice to complete CPS checks for volunteers who were identified as needing a background check.
The MCPS Background Screening Office (BSO) is charged with overseeing the background check process for MCPS and therefore responsible for ensuring that every applicable person undergoes all appropriate steps required by law and MCPS policy. Their oversight extends to prospective staff, active employees, contractors, and volunteers who coach, participate in outdoor environmental education programs, overnight field trips, and certain trips that require extended hours or distances with students.
As part of the background check process, BSO staff (with the assistance of a contractor) process fingerprints, conduct on line database queries, and coordinate with other entities to complete required steps.
In January of 2019, BSO began participating in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI), Record of Arrest and Prosecutions Back (Rap Back) program. Once BSO staff enroll an individual in Rap Back, the system continuously monitors their criminal history and automatically alerts MCPS to changes in the individual’s criminal history as reflected in the system. FBI policy requires MCPS to remove individuals from Rap Back once they have separated from service or no longer need to have their criminal history monitored by MCPS.
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The OIG found numerous problems with MCPS’s background check process. Its summary findings are:
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MCPS is not monitoring criminal histories for all employees.
MCPS is not ensuring initial criminal history checks are conducted for contractors and volunteers prior to them beginning work.
Not all individuals with access to students have undergone a Child Protective Services check.
MCPS has no formal procedures governing suitability determinations.
MCPS does not consistently remove people from the criminal history monitoring program as required. MCPS does not consistently ensure volunteers have taken required child abuse and neglect training.
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Here are a few details in the report.
The OIG noted that in November 2024, there were 12,655 employees who had not been subject to a criminal check since at least 2019. MCPS officials had been aware of the backlog “for over a year prior to our review but determined that it would be cost prohibitive” to check these employees. The OIG alerted the superintendent about this on December 2, 2024.
Administrators at one school visited by the OIG (which was not named) said “they did not know there was a requirement to ensure volunteers with unsupervised access to students undergo a criminal background check prior to volunteering.”
Child protective services (CPS) checks are conducted by the county government’s Child Welfare Services (CWS) office. However, due to the volume of required checks, MCPS has had to supplement CWS to carry them out. In 2024, CWS identified 30 individuals at MCPS having an “indicated” finding of child abuse or neglect, which does not prove guilt but should be subject to more review.
The OIG took the extremely unusual step of personally blasting Superintendent Thomas Taylor in its report. In response to the superintendent’s letter, which contained a list of “substantial inaccuracies” in the report necessitating “many hours” of time spent on corrections, here is what the OIG said.
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The Superintendent’s response to this report is included in its entirety in Appendix A. Of note, MCPS does not disagree with any of the findings contained in the report and indicates general concurrence with the recommendations while highlighting the challenges of relying upon partner agencies to address issues associated with CPS checks. Although the Superintendent asserts that MCPS takes “full responsibility” for the deficiencies identified in the report, we find the response perplexing and are disappointed by the apparent attempts to transfer blame to this office for his administration’s “inability to act more swiftly” to address these serious issues that have been well known at MCPS for years and yet have gone unaddressed.
As noted in the report, the Inspector General sent a memorandum to the Superintendent over seven months ago to ensure he was aware of the significant backlog of criminal history checks for existing staff. Since that time, we have worked closely with numerous individuals at MCPS to assess the background check process which includes CPS checks.
Contrary to assertions made by the Superintendent, OIG staff enjoyed an excellent working relationship with numerous MCPS staff involved in the background check process. We found these staff members and their counterparts to be open and forthcoming about the challenges in their work, including their attempts to alert previous leadership about the criminal history and CPS check backlogs. We had numerous conversations with staff from multiple MCPS offices regarding the background check process and held collaborative discussions about best practices and possible changes to process. We also note that near the end of our review, the former HR Director met with CWS management, which we observed as a positive step for moving forward. With that context, the allegations that the OIG failed to keep MCPS informed and failed to act with transparency are unsupported and inaccurate.
In addition to our frequent discussions with MCPS staff during our review, in May we spoke with management about our findings, and on June 6th we shared an initial draft of our report with the Superintendent’s office. At that time, per our standard protocol, we requested MCPS to provide technical comments or corrections. In the spirit of collaboration and transparency, we repeatedly offered to answer questions and engage in dialogue regarding the draft; shared contact information with senior leadership to facilitate informal conversations; and even agreed to an extension for MCPS to provide a draft action plan.
OIG staff met with members of the Superintendent’s leadership team on June 25th and in response to that meeting made corrections to address the concerns raised and provided a revised draft report on July 7th. On July 16th we held another meeting to discuss MCPS’s proposed corrective actions and address any other questions or issues. At no time during or after that meeting did MCPS leadership request additional changes to the report, raise wording discrepancies, or identify any inaccuracies. The Superintendent did not attend either of these meetings, and despite his claims, MCPS leaders did not exhibit or invite an authentic collaboration. In fact, during our last meeting with MCPS leadership, they repeatedly refused to discuss specifics of certain planned actions which would assist the OIG in determining if the proposed steps would address observed deficiencies or offer alternative considerations. It was only in the Superintendent’s July 25th formal response that we learned of the nature and extent of discussions with the State regarding CPS checks…
Lastly, in contrast to their statements, the actions by MCPS senior leaders do not demonstrate either accountability or transparency. The fact remains that thousands of individuals with unsupervised access to MCPS schools and students have not had a criminal history check in more than five years and thousands more have not completed a CPS check. In the end, only one entity is tasked with and has accepted the responsibility for obtaining these background checks to safeguard employees and students, and that is MCPS.
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MCPS responded with a press release and supplementary communications within seconds (that’s right, folks – seconds) of the report’s release. While MCPS conceded that there had been problems for years, the district also hit back at “inconsistencies and mischaracterizations” in the OIG’s report, including:
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Overstated Involvement of Child Welfare Services (CWS): The report inaccurately describes the time, role, and effort that CWS devotes to processing CPS background checks for MCPS.
Mischaracterization of Scope of Authority to Correct Issues: The Inspector General recommends that MCPS unilaterally clear the CPS backlog, despite the fact–confirmed repeatedly by both the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Maryland Department of Human Services– that MCPS does not hold the legal authority to conduct or finalize these checks.
Delayed Disclosure of Critical Information: The Inspector General failed to alert MCPS leadership to the full extent of the issues in a timely manner, delaying urgent corrective action by withholding critical information for months while directing MCPS not to share the draft findings with responsible partner agencies.
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Here’s my take.
Most of the time, when the OIG puts out a report finding problems in department or agency processes, the relevant senior executive admits responsibility and promises to do better. That sometimes yields follow-ups by the OIG to see if improvement takes place.
This is different. MCPS admits to having problems in its criminal and CPS background checks and has launched extensive communications describing its efforts to fix them. However, it is pushing back against specific findings in the report. The superintendent and the inspector general have put detailed criticisms of each other’s work in the report, something I have not seen before. That means there are controversies of fact at stake here. A county government agency is also involved, raising questions of coordination.
All of this will make for a very messy and contentious oversight session by the county council it returns in the fall.