Hazel's impact honored

COEUR d’ALENE — Before diving into business Monday, the Coeur d’Alene School District Board of Trustees took time to honor one of its own.

The regular June meeting of the publicly elected, volunteer board marked the final meeting for Trustee Christa Hazel, whose four-year term expires at the end of the month. Board Chair Casey Morrisroe presented Hazel with a plaque before Hazel expressed her thanks to the community, and confidence in her fellow board members.

“I have faith they will continue to provide leadership at a time when it’s obviously needed the most,” Hazel said. “Thank you so much for the opportunity to serve, and entrusting me with your children and tax dollars.”

One of the first items of business at the meeting concerned hiring practices within the district. Acting Superintendent Trina Caudle told board members the district’s human resources department created a new flowchart of criminal convictions that could disqualify an individual from employment.

According to Caudle, the flowchart has three primary areas. The first is a list of criminal offenses, predominantly related to the mistreatment of youths, that would disqualify someone from employment regardless of when they occurred.

Caudle said while the second list of offenses — things like fraud and possession of a controlled substance — are not as serious and are not disqualifiers at the state level, they still qualify as “something we would not consider appropriate in an employee” if they occurred within the past seven years.

Finally, the third tier of disqualifying offenses looks at criminal convictions in the second group that occurred more than seven years prior to an application being submitted. This tier, according to Caudle, flags a potential employee as needing further review to look at the type of offense and how that conviction could potentially impact an individual's ability to perform their job.

“We actually started implementing this when we looked at the most recent group of hires,” Caudle added.

The district, Caudle added, will also move forward with the purchase of a digital fingerprint scanner that allegedly speeds up the state’s background check process to two weeks, versus the typical 10-14.

Caudle said the purchase was highly recommended by the state, and comes with a one-time cost to the district of $8,963.

- In other board news, trustees approved a $16,500 contract with McPherson Jacobson LLC to assist in the national search for the district’s next superintendent. The contract is set to begin in early fall.