According to the article, "This year, the district is paying $156,280 for background checks drawing on nearly 190 criminal history databases, including information from Texas' Department of Public Safety and sex offender registries from all 50 states."

Dallas is the 12th largest school district in the nation and employs over 19,000 people yet their total budget for background checks is only $156,000!  This budget apparently includes an annual check of all current employees and an initial check of all new employees, according to the article. Assuming a very conservative 12% turnover rate in the DISD, that his only $6.63 per background check.

According to the article:

Mark Myers, chief operating officer of [the background screening firm used by DISD], said he couldn't discuss the results of checks on any individual working for a school system that uses his company.

He said his company checks as thoroughly as it can. But, he said, no national database exists for finding all crimes, and many counties and states don't provide information electronically. Others don't update regularly.

"You're subject to whatever is in those databases," Mr. Myers said.

For more extensive checks, DISD would need to pay more to send a [screening firm] staffer out to county courthouses to check through records.

If anyone at the DISD had done their homework, they'd have known that they were buying a cheap, inadequate background check. However, it is time for the background screening industry to be held responsible, as well. Screening firms that are selling these cheap database searches as stand-alone products without requiring their customers to purchase more thorough research products at the same time are equally culpable in the harm done to these students and every other person injured because of cheap background checks.