Lisa Savage Testimony
4/11/01
testimony before the Maine Legislature Education & Cultural Affairs
Committee, public hearing on LD1765
Senator Mitchell, Representative Richard, members of the committee...
My name is Lisa Savage, and I live in Skowhegan. With your indulgence, I
would like to read an email I received a few Sundays ago from a friend who
is a high school teacher:
"I was fingerprinted yesterday. I had a real struggle with it, felt like I
let down the whole profession by complying. But I also feel I'd be letting
down the profession if I left. At least that was the rationale that got me
through the day. I HATED IT!"
Thatıs testimony from one of the thousands of people in classrooms right
now, whose lives are affected by the requirement to submit proof of their
innocence of the crime of child abuse or lose their jobs.
When the law first went into effect, educators were repeatedly assured that
their privacy would be respected and their confidentiality ensured. Since
that time, they have been subjected to statewide press coverage of the fact
that 1,324 of those checked had some unspecified kind of criminal record.
Those educators with no criminal record are part of the pool suspected of
being one of the 1,324 (which ones? who knows?).
Last year about this time I attended a work session of this committee where
legislators questioned education department employees as to how
confidentiality of the results of proposed background checks would be
handled. Nancy Ibarguen stated that ³locking file cabinets have already been
ordered² to protect the privacy of those checked. At the time I waited for a
member of the committee to question how locking file cabinets were to
protect data in an era of computerized record keeping. I never heard that
question asked, so I still donıt know the answer.
I do know that the Attorney General has interpreted the current law to
constrain the release of any information to the public, and that the
legislature now seeks to change the confidentiality provisions of the
original law. As it stands at present, an employee may be dismissed by a
superintendent who has no information beyond advice from the state that the
person is no longer employable in the schools. Kafka could hardly have
devised a more chilling bureaucratic scenario.
I urge the committee to vote "ought not to pass" on LD1765. The
fingerprinting statute is a bad law, one which diverts funds which are
sorely needed to protect the children of Maine from their real abusers, and
this amendment wonıt fix it. Only repeal will do that.
Thank you.
Lisa Savage
Atwood-Tapley School