School district’s hiring process in question

Antonio Angel will be a senior at North Salinas High School when classes start up in the Fall. He said he will start the semester with a different perspective.

Angel admitted this is a result of the recent arrest of the school’s track and field coach, John Fickas. Fickas is charged with multiple counts of rape. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said more victims have since come forward.

“It got me thinking that they just might hire anybody to go into the school. I don’t think that is right,” said Angel.

Parents and community members have voiced their concerns on social media. They said they wondered how Fickas was hired in the first place.

Salinas Union High School District officials said active investigation prevents them from commenting at this time.

On the other hand, Soledad Unified School District (SUSD) shared the process they use when completing background checks.

Chief Business Officer for SUSD, Elizabeth Wilson, said the process is required of all schools under California law. “All government and school employees need to be live scanned in order to be employed. They take a digital print of your finger prints and of your palm print. They send it off to the Department of Justice,” said Wilson.

Wilson said the U.S. Department of Justice looks for criminal activity in a person’s background. If the department finds a felony, SUSD removes that person from its hiring process. Wilson said this requirement goes for all staff members, even volunteers.

“If there is no criminal activity reported on someone we’ll get a negative report. That doesn’t mean that somebody hasn’t done something that they shouldn’t have done. That just means there is no criminal record of it. They haven’t been arrested for it. They haven’t been convicted of it,” said Wilson.

Wilson said the U.S. Department of Justice notifies the district if criminal activity appears at any time during a staff member’s employment.

Wilson noted that every school district is responsible to see that the background process is completed with each new hire. “It protects our children. We take that seriously. From the standpoint of Soledad Unified, I can tell you we do that with every single employee and coach that comes through,” said Wilson.