Bellbrook graduation 2012
Fairfield Senior 2012 graduation
Kroger Aquatic Center opens
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2000 > August > 31
Thursday, August 31, 2000
Past forces candidate to withdraw
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
Dayton school Superintendent Jerrie Bascome McGill’s choice for associate superintendent pleaded guilty in 1993 to two misdemeanor charges of misconduct in office in connection with incidents while he was a superintendent in Iowa.
The charges against Larry D. Beard related to his personal use of a van leased by the Charles City, Iowa, school district and an allegation that he was paid twice for some expenses by the district and the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, according to a 1992 story in the Des Moines Register .
When contacted Wednesday, Beard said he planned to withdraw as a candidate for the job as the district’s third-ranking administrator now that questions have been raised about his background. His hiring was pulled from today’s agenda when Dayton board members learned of his problems in Iowa.< McGill refused to comment.
School officials, who asked not to be named, said a company that is under contract with the district to provide background checks told them Beard’s record was clean. Beard said he never thought to tell anyone about the incident and nobody asked him about it.
“It’s one of those things that gets blown out of proportion,” he said. “It’s so far removed - 10 years ago - and it never came up. I never thought about it.”
Beard originally faced four charges including felonious theft in office, theft, falsifying documents and forgery. He was sentenced to a one-year suspended jail term, placed on probation and ordered to make restitution.
Beard now lives in Lima and works for National Computer Systems, the company that creates and scores Ohio’s proficiency tests. He resigned from Charles City Schools in 1991 and later worked as superintendent in Wapakoneta.
Dayton Board of Education President Ricky Boyd said some board members had met Beard but had not interviewed him.
“The superintendent does the screening and hiring,” Boyd said. “I have a concern about this and we will look into it.”
According to the Register article, an Iowa grand jury indicted Beard based on allegations that he leased a van in the name of the school district without authorization, billed the district for a $140 briefcase he took as his own property, collected double reimbursement for travel expenses and filed false receipts for meals.
The assistant superintendent’s job has been open since Carol Hauser left in January for a job with Cleveland Public Schools.
The post will combine Hauser’s duties with some of those of former Deputy Superintendent Ann Levett-Lowe, who left in February for a job at the McGregor School of Antioch University in Yellow Springs.
The successful candidate will be the district’s No. 3 administrator after McGill and Treasurer Jan Schultz. School officials say the job will be posted again and the search process restarted now that Beard has withdrawn.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Contractor defends job check
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
The president of the company that checks applicant backgrounds for Dayton Public Schools defended his firm after the district almost hired a top administrator with previous convictions for misconduct in office.
Superintendent Jerrie Bascome McGill said Thursday the district likely will change its background checking procedure after the district came within 24 hours of hiring Larry Beard.
School officials only learned that Beard pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in 1993 in Iowa for financial misdeeds when the Dayton Daily News showed them a 1992 story about his indictment in Iowa. The story was in the newspaper’s archives.
“We did not make an error,” said Steven Gall, president of the Dayton-based background check company Gall & Gall, Inc. “We did what we were told.”
The board was to vote Thursday on McGill’s recommendation to hire Beard, but the agenda was changed Wednesday night. Beard then withdrew from consideration.
The district pays Gall & Gall up to $50,000 a year to perform checks on a range of prospective employees, from top administrators to bus drivers.
Steven Gall said checks for Dayton schools go far beyond what is required by state law, but they do not routinely involve newspaper archive searches.
“I don’t know of any school system, or most employers, that would check that,” he said.
According to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, state law requires schools to check Ohio criminal records for most new hires. If the applicant has lived or worked outside the state within five years, a federal background check is required.
Gall said his company researches the past 10 years for applicants and in Beard’s case searched Iowa court records for felony convictions. Because Beard’s convictions were misdemeanors, they were missed, he said. Reference checks and calls to Beard’s prior employers also turned up nothing, he said.
McGill said that in the future, the district will ask Gall & Gall to check for misdemeanor convictions when investigating the backgrounds of applications for principal or any top administrative job in other states. Background checks for those positions now will include searches of newspaper archives, she said.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
