Press Release -

House Backs Porter-Led Proposal

to Improve Safety in U.S. Classrooms

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. House of Representatives today approved the Children’s Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act (H.R. 4472), legislation that includes a provision to significantly enhance the ability of state and local school districts to protect students. The proposal, offered by Education & the Workforce Committee member Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV), allows public and private schools access to federal crime information databases to provide schools criminal history records for individuals seeking to work with or around children.

“By providing our school districts with direct access to criminal information records, we can help ensure timely and complete information on prospective school employees,” said Rep. Porter. “This legislation will provide our school districts with another tool in their extraordinary efforts to bring highly qualified staff to our classrooms and schools.”

Under the Porter provision, candidates for employment within public and private schools will be subject to fingerprint-based background checks to provide accurate and useful information to school administrators. In addition to crafting this legislative language, Porter has hosted a 21^st Century Competitiveness Subcommittee field hearing on the issue, gathering input from parents and school officials from his home state of Nevada.

“Parents should not have to question the safety of their children in the classroom, and administrators should be confident in the staff they bring into their schools,” noted Education & Workforce Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA). “This legislation will provide more information to our nation’s schools so they can continue to bring compassionate and qualified men and women into the classroom. I commend my colleague, Representative Porter, for championing this effort to protect our nation’s children, and I thank him for his consistent work to promote school safety.”

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