Thousands of Montgomery County Public Schools workers have fallen through cracks in background check systems, according to a new report, potentially meaning people with criminal histories could be working closely with children.
Maryland’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report Monday detailing “deficiencies” with background checks in MCPS, which serves more than 160,000 students.
The report found what it calls serious lapses in important personnel security measures required by state law and county policy within Maryland’s largest school district.
“Yes, your children are safe,” Montgomery County Superintendent Thomas W. Taylor said in an email to parents.
“These issues stem from gaps in our systems dating back to at least 2019, which were not properly addressed by prior administrations. We are now uncovering the full extent of these issues and are taking swift and serious action to correct them,” Taylor’s email said.
What the Inspector General found within MCPS
The OIG said it conducted its review of background check procedures from October 2024 to May 2025 and found several lapses. The report also listed several recommendations, including eliminating backlogs and providing training. Here’s the full report.
Among the findings:
- More than 12,000 MCPS employees have not been entered into an FBI database that monitors criminal record information on an ongoing basis.
- 4,900 people who potentially have access to MCPS students have not received initial Child Protective Services checks by the Department of Health and Human Services for reports of child abuse or neglect.
- Some contractors began work before criminal history checks were completed.
- Some volunteers with unsupervised access to students did not always undergo criminal history checks.
- MCPS doesn’t have formal procedures for dealing with “negative information” found in a criminal history check.
Superintendent says MCPS is addressing issues ‘with urgency, transparency’
Superintendent Taylor, who was hired last year, said in the email to families that every current working MCPS employee has completed a criminal background check.
He noted some of the key breakdowns, including stopping the use of the FBI monitoring system called Rap Back that MCPS adopted in 2019, began during the pandemic. Rap Back is a program that “allows authorized government agencies to receive notification of subsequent activity on individuals who hold positions of trust or are under criminal justice supervision or investigation,” according to the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Taylor says all employees hired before 2019 will now be rechecked and entered into the Rap Back system, and a new system for real-time clearance tracking was launched in July.
He promised new training and oversight, and said the old paper system to request Child Protective Services checks has now been replaced with a digital system.
Taylor also said all staff will get new badges that “include more visual information to strengthen school-level safety and ensure up-to-date screening.”
“We’re fixing what wasn’t done completely or consistently in the past, and we are doing it with urgency, transparency, and a focus on getting it right,” Taylor said.
Kate Stewart, president of the Montgomery County Council, said the county will question the superintendent, the inspector and other responsible parties on Sept. 26.
“To talk about the report, what progress has been made. But then we will also have follow-ups,” Stewart said. A joint statement from the Montgomery County Council president and vice president says, among other things, that they are frustrated by what they call a lack of coordination between the state and county agencies involved in the process.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
