Maine schools must investigate employee misconduct and check hiring records

Superintendents must investigate complaints of covered misconduct and immediately notify the Maine Department of Education when an investigation starts. The rules cover public schools, approved private schools, and other listed school organizations. Covered employees must be subject to section 6103's requirements. Misconduct can involve students or coworkers. Covered investigations concern alleged conduct that schools reasonably expect would affect employment or contracted work, such as substance-related misconduct, abuse, or inappropriate contact. Schools must immediately report an employee's departure during an investigation and its findings and final outcome, including false or unsupported allegations.

Schools must check applicants' state records before offering jobs, and the Maine Department of Education must mark records when covered investigations are pending. These duties concern covered school employees and applicants. Record markers and their removal follow the rules in the law. Checks cover job eligibility and investigation markers. Authorized school administrators can see pending markers. The department updates them when misconduct is found more likely than not and removes them after a no-misconduct finding once all appeal rights are exhausted. The department must immediately report action against an employee to the employing school. It must also immediately notify other reported school employers about discipline, suspension, termination, or departure during an unfinished investigation. The department must destroy copies of records tied to a disciplinary finding reversed on a school-level appeal. Schools receiving confidential information must keep it confidential. The department must notify the employing school within 15 business days of starting its own investigation and within five business days after completing it.

Schools must disclose covered investigation information and misconduct findings to the Maine Department of Education and any school organization that requests them. The disclosure rule applies to covered school employee investigations. Disclosure applies when the school finds that misconduct more likely than not occurred, even if a confidentiality clause or other agreement says otherwise. Schools must send the department final reports supporting discipline, suspension, or termination. Employees may submit written responses, which the department must place in its investigation file.

The Maine Department of Education must bring together a working group to review school investigation practices and recommend improvements. The review covers investigations of credentialed employees in public schools, approved private schools, and other listed school organizations. The group must include representatives of school management, educators, child advocacy, and sexual assault prevention, plus a Maine employment lawyer. The report must cover investigation numbers and outcomes, reporting practices, hiring checks, and investigator training. It must consider whether to establish consequences for failing to report. The report goes to the Legislature's education committee, which may submit related legislation in 2027.