A report from the Montgomery County, Maryland, Office of the Inspector General cited a number of failures in the employee screening process in the county school system that serves more than 160,000 students.
According to the report from Inspector General Megan Davey Limarzi’s office, more than 12,000 current Montgomery County Public Schools employees have outdated criminal background checks and more than 4,900 have not undergone screening by the county’s Child Protective Services office.
The OIG report states that during its review, some volunteers and contractors who have “unsupervised access to students” began work before the completion of those background checks.
Other findings included a determination that MCPS doesn’t have a process to make sure all volunteers completed training on child abuse and neglect and that the school system continues to monitor the criminal histories of former staff no longer in the system.
Finally, according to the executive summary of the OIG report, the MCPS does not have a formal process when negative information is found in a criminal history check.
Among the recommendations from the OIG, the school system should “take immediate action to eliminate the backlog of existing employees that have not been entered into the criminal history monitoring program.”
MCPS has also been notified that the OIG recommends making sure all contractors and volunteers that may have unsupervised access to students should have a background check before starting work and the school system should also take “immediate action” to eliminate the backlog of CPS checks.
In response to the OIG report, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor wrote that it “highlights urgent and unacceptable gaps” in the hiring process — but he called out the IG’s office for “lack of rigor.”
Taylor also complained of “inconsistencies and mischaracterizations” in the report connected to its stated responsibilities for CPS reporting.
While MCPS concurred with four of the OIG’s findings, including the failure to monitor criminal histories for all employees and not ensuring background checks for contractors and volunteers, Taylor wrote that it wasn’t possible for the school system to take action on the backlog involving Child Protective Services because “the state does not permit MCPS access to the data, records, ad systems needed to conduct the CPS screenings.”
Taylor also fired back in his response, telling Limarzi “your office has impeded our ability to act swiftly and transparently.”
Limarzi’s response, contained in the OIG report, stated that “At no time did the OIG withhold the results of our work or stimy [sic] the actions of MCPS to begin addressing the fact that there are thousands of individuals (employees, contractors, staff and volunteers) with access to schools and children who have not had an updated criminal history check in over five years.”
The school system did issue a news release outlining the actions it has taken to address the findings in the OIG report.
According to the release, MCPS has launched a “real time cross-agency” clearance tracker for all new employees, contractors and volunteers to make sure no new hire starts on the job without a criminal-background check and CPS clearance completed.
The school system also moved from a paper-based to a new computer-based system to track and process CPS checks, “cutting CPS processing times form 4-6 weeks to just a few business days.”
The review was conducted between October 2024 and May 2025.
Montgomery County Council President Kate Stewart told WTOP she was “obviously very alarmed and concerned regarding the lapse and gaps we have” in the background check process. “We know that we need to ensure that our schools are safe places for our students to learn and all of our staff to work.”
The school system’s explanation that it is already taking action on several of the recommendations “reassured me” Stewart said, “however I wish we never had to be in this place.”
Asked about Taylor’s criticisms of the OIG’s report, Stewart said “I have full confidence in our inspector general’s report and in her office.”
Stewart, who leads the county council’s Audit Committee, said the committee will hold a work session on the report on Sept. 26. Limarzi and Taylor will be invited to the session “to walk through the findings and discuss the matter,” said Stewart.
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