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	Lawmakers OK Background Checks By Jennifer Friedlin The Jewish Week June 29, 2006 http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12652 The New York State Legislature has passed a bill that would permit private schools to conduct federal background checks of prospective employees, enabling yeshivas, Catholic schools and other private institutions to determine whether a person is a convicted sex offender before they are hired. "I'm pleased that we [have] now opened the availability of getting criminal background checks in private schools," said Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach), the bill's sponsor. Passage of the legislation comes in the wake of allegations that a yeshiva in Flatbush, Brooklyn, harbored a sex offender for decades. The allegations and a lawsuit against Rabbi Yehuda Kolko of Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Temimah have generated a debate within the Jewish community about how to protect Jewish students. The bill, which must still be signed by Gov. George Pataki before it can become law, is similar to a 2000 law that requires New York's public schools to conduct fingerprint-based checks in the FBI's national criminal background check system. Such checks reveal whether a person has been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor anywhere in the nation.
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