News-Record.com

I think this incident illustrates the dangers of "passing the buck," a common practice in many industries. A potential employer doesn't look too hard because it doesn't want to see the bad stuff, and the previous employer doesn't feel obligated to reveal bad stuff about the employee.

Now why would I worry about this, Mr. Clark? It's for the little people, the flyovers on my way to the coast. You think I would worry about this when I'm jetting off to Rancho Mirage to give a talk on "innovation" or to the Riviera to get the latest award for "closing the achievement gap". Get real, dah...ling!

If this fella caused any trouble, I'll send the families of the victim some Dom Peringnon and some caviar, dah...ling. And everything will be okay.

This Robert Damashi admitting they didn't do due diligence? Who is this guy? Where do you get them? Admitting you made a mistake? This guy wouldn't last 10 min on the GC schoolboard.

It seems to be stating the obvious.

It would be obviously more obvious for someone here to say the same thing.

Doug:

This is inexcusable. The East Hartford system had its hands tied because the allegations prior to Mr. Miller's employment there had never been substantiated. However, the allegations at East Hartford were substantiated, and the guy was run out of town on a rail.

The GCS blew it on this one and put students at risk in the process. Those involved in the hiring need to be identified, and a few heads need to roll.

Note to the GCS. Please add a check box to the applicant evaluation form: googled applicant!

Just another example of GCS getting someone elses trash. Grier was fired before, and we hired him... GC is becoming the place for losers look for work. C'mon over, we're hiring!

The same due diligence needed to be done in this county 7 or 8 years ago. Hopefully it will be done this time.

But even Grier detractors should see this as a very different set of circumstances.

Mr. Ribar is absolutely right -- there is no way this guy should have been hired to work in any school. Even if he hasn't been convicted of a crime, there are far too many red flags to warrant his hiring.

And the inexcusable part is that this information was widely available. Your simple Google search turned it more than enough information to warrant keeping from hiring Miller. How on earth did they not catch this stuff?

Mr. Ribar is right: someone at GCS didn't do their job and they need to be held accountable. This is yet another black eye for our public school system -- not as if we haven't had enough of them lately.

Not to throw myself in the "Grier bashers" camp, Doug. But this hiring took place on his watch. He should be held at least partially accountable for this fiasco, should he not?

I agree. The superintendent should give his personal approval to all hirings at the level of assistant principal and up and should be accountable for mistakes. However, I doubt the superintendent personally conducts background checks. He has to rely on other staff to carry out those tasks with at least some degree of competence.

I was only objecting to the comparison between Grier's hiring and Miller's. Whatever one may think of Grier's prior record as a superintendent, there was no similarity to suspicions about inappropriate behavior toward students.

Okay, I see what you are saying and completely agree. Two totally different situations.

I agree with "just saying" and Mr. Ribar. The incompetence shown in the hiring of Kevin Miller is inexcusable. Whoever had a hand in hiring this man should be called on the carpet. I am extremely fearful now that there may be other school employees who pose a threat to our children because GCS didn't thoroughly research their backgrounds.

As a fairly new parent to this school system, this only confirms to me what Grier detractors have been saying.

But back to your point, there were those in East Hartford who thought the superintendent should resign for hiring Miller there:

http://www.wfsb.com/education/11215967/detail.html?rss=hart&psp=news

Grier is too high up to hold responsible; the actual person responsible has never been heard of by anyone. End result: no one is responsible or shall be held as such.

In the meantime, I would like to offer the services of Cutting Edge Googling, Inc. For only, say, $24 million, I'll train every teacher and administrator in the county to use this new resource.

Any fifth grader could teach them that for free.

(posted over at the Chalkboard and re-posted here)

Was the information available through criminal records checks or was it not (that is, was it kept secret or unavailable for personnel/legal reasons)? If it was not available, it's hard to fault GCS. With only the current news reports to go on, it's equally difficult to tell if Mr. Miller lied about his employment dates and/or if GCS asked his current employer about employment dates and if that employer answered honestly. (Most businesses don't give references anymore and merely confirm employment dates.)

A Google search might have been a good idea; perhaps GCS should add that to their arsenal (and then weed out the unverifiable ones).

Also, before we jump the gun, there is nothing in current reporting indicating a problem at Grimsley. This may be a case of an old incident catching up with Mr. Miller and even though his alleged lying is enough to invite him to leave, there is nothing to show that something happened here. Let's remember that.

If he was never convicted of anything and no warrants outstanding, there may be no records that could have been shared legally with GCS. Let's remember that prior to convicting GCS of doing a bad employee check.

Doug, the chances of getting a new training program are infinitely higher than the chances of someone being held responsible. There are too many Sues in the world willing to look for reasons why--somehow, someway--GSC can't be held responsible for finding out basic information available to any 5th grader.

Sue:

With all due respect, you must have missed the beginning of this thread. As Doug pointed out, there were published news stories regarding Mr. Miller regarding the circumstances of his being fired by East Hartford and of the substantiation of allegations against him last spring, well before he was hired by the GCS. This isn't a matter of the news just coming out.

The circumstances that you are describing seem to fit Mr. Miller's hiring by East Hartford, which was not able to access earlier unsubstantiated allegations. However, they don't fit the hiring by GCS.

We can say unequivocally here that the GCS blew it. There was information available from public sources that Mr. Miller had problems.

It should scare all of us that something this blatant could be overlooked.

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