Lower School Math and Science Coordinator Hannah Viana was fired after CESJDS was notified that Viana lost her teacher’s license because of alleged inappropriate conduct with a student at her former school, Jordan Elementary School in Chicago. Head of School Rabbi Mitchel Malkus emailed the JDS community on April 5 about her dismissal.

According to a CBS Chicago article published on June 25, 2015, Viana was accused of multiple incidents of inappropriate contact with students, including one in which she “kissed a student while she sat on his lap.” The article states that “a CPS [Chicago Public Schools] investigative memorandum found credible evidence” for these accusations. This ultimately led to her resignation after CPS filed for her dismissal. Viana denied the allegations.

Viana was placed on CPS’ “do not hire” list and her teacher’s license was suspended for two years, but she was never convicted.

Maryland is one of many states that does not require teachers at independent or private schools to have a teacher’s license. Malkus said that JDS does not require teachers to have teacher’s licenses because JDS looks for teachers to have a “higher level of credential,” such as a masters or doctorate degree in their subject. Because JDS does not require teacher’s licenses, the school never asked Viana if she had one, and thus was unaware that her license had been revoked.

Viana was hired before the 2014-2015 school year, following the same method as any teacher applying for a job at JDS. The hiring process for all employees at JDS includes a background check.

“Anyone who works in the school receives the same background check because when you work in a school environment with children and students, you need to be checked even if you’re not working directly [with children],” Malkus said.

JDS uses a fingerprint-supported technology that is linked to the FBI in order to check the backgrounds of employees prior to hiring them. All prospective teachers are fingerprinted by a separate company and put into a database. The only people who have access to the background investigations on employees are the members of the JDS Human Resources department. This technology also alerts the school if employees are involved in any criminal activity while they are working at JDS, and even after they no longer work at the school.

Director of Human Resources Lori Belke, who has been working at JDS for 14 years, said that it is very rare for anything to come up through this investigative service. It is also JDS protocol that the staff in charge of hiring a new employee has to check three references, such as former employers, before hiring. Belke and Human Resources Associate Harlene Stanchfield are responsible for reading and conducting background checks on prospective teachers.

According to Belke, Viana passed the background check and her references were checked without finding any problems. Because Viana was never prosecuted, her alleged past inappropriate contact did not come up in the background check.

Belke also thinks that this information did not come up when CBS Chicago contacted JDS while writing their article due to the nature of the reporter’s questions, but she is unsure because she was not in the office that day. JDS did not comment on the matter to CBS Chicago because of school policy to not publicly comment on teachers’ personal matters. The Lion’s Tale contacted the reporter from CBS Chicago, but she declined to be interviewed for this article.

Belke also noted that even if JDS had googled Viana’s name when they were considering her employment, nothing would have come up because the article was published after Viana was hired.

“We don’t, as a practice today anyhow, go searching on any random day for an employee, unless someone gives us pause or a cause of concern; that’s not part of our practice today,” Belke said. “We rely on our fingerprint-supported background investigation process to notify us if there is subsequent activity, but in this case it wasn’t a criminal [action].”

When JDS has to fire a teacher, it is usually because of a performance issue. The actual firing comes after many conversations with the employee, telling them how they need to improve. If there is no improvement, the employee is fired. This was not the case with Viana.

“In the case of Ms. Viana … we immediately knew that our students would feel uncomfortable, our parents, our community would feel uncomfortable,” Belke said. “There was nothing that could be improved in this situation so we had to take more of an aggressive approach to go ahead and relieve her of her responsibilities.”

In an email to parents notifying them of Viana’s firing, Malkus stated that no complaint had been made about Viana’s behavior while at JDS.

Belke said that JDS was unaware of Viana’s alleged misconduct until a parent notified Lower School Principal Matthew Bellas about the CBS Chicago article. Bellas declined to comment on the hiring and firing of Viana.

“It came to our attention that there was this article on the internet about what had transpired,” Belke said. “When it was brought to our attention, that was our first knowledge of that activity.”

In light of Viana’s firing, Malkus said that JDS has already started and will continue to look at and modify its hiring practices in order to avoid this type of situation in the future.

“We’re going to go through a full review of both the background checks and the hiring process that we have, in addition to the monitoring process,” Malkus said.

Currently on its teacher application, JDS does not ask if a teacher has a teacher’s license, but Belke thinks that this question might be added to the application. This would let JDS ask the subsequent question: “Has your license ever been suspended or revoked?”

“I don’t know what the final adjustment or changes in our hiring practices will be, but I do think we will be making some,” Belke said.

Because of the incident, JDS has been in contact with other independent schools in the area about their policies regarding hiring and background checking. JDS has also recently learned that many states have a “do not hire” database or other websites that have lists of teachers whose licenses have been revoked. Belke said that while it is likely that JDS will use these databases in the future, she believes the school was very effective in dealing with the incident.

“In light of this particular situation, I truly feel that the school acted swiftly, quickly and in a transparent way by communicating with the community [about] what had taken place, and [the] prompt and immediate action of removing Ms. Viana from her position and access to the building,” Belke said.