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DISD Starts Fingerprinting All Employees
(2008-09-05)
epadilla (flickr.com)
(KERA) - The Dallas Independent School District began fingerprinting employees at each campus today to comply with a state law to help protect students from those hiding criminal records.

In the last legislative session Texas joined 42 other states now finger printing all certified school employees. The DISD's Human Development chief, Kim Olson, says the district plans to check not just the 15 thousand certified workers, but the other 7 thousand non certified employees like her.

Kimberly D. Olson, Chief Human Development DISD: We've always done backgernd checks on personnel before they get employed by us, but this is one step further to ensure people are who they say they r.

Olson says this should help protect against identity thieves, or felons like child molesters, who may get jobs using fake Social Security numbers.

Olson: So finger prints are tied to the crime & arrest record or regardless of what they say their name is or what they're Social Security number is

The district has purchased 3 of its own bio metric finger print machines tied in to a national criminal history database. The whole process in disd could take more than a year.
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