The District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) has the legal responsibility to provide a safe and secure working and learning environment for students and employees. To ensure the safety of pupils, Regulation 521/01 of the Education Act requires every school board to collect a personal criminal history of every individual who is an employee of the board or a service provider (who comes into direct contact with pupils on a regular basis at a school site in the normal course of delivering their services). Under some circumstances or depending on the activity, school volunteers may also be required to complete a criminal background check as set out in Policy G-01: School Volunteers.
The personal criminal history of employees is to be provided to the DSBN prior to the individual commencing employment. Similarly, where a service provider is required to provide a personal criminal history, it is to be provided to the DSBN prior to the service provider delivering services at a school site. Thereafter, the employee or service provider is required to provide an annual offence declaration no later than September 1 of each year.
The purpose of obtaining a personal criminal history and/or annual offence declaration is to determine whether the individual has a record of offences which would make them unsuitable as an employee or to continue in their employment or as a service provider. The DSBN will not knowingly employ persons or service providers who have criminal records (for which a pardon has not been granted) and/or patterns of behaviour that may place students, staff, and/or the DSBN at risk