> Clearances Policy

Per the Pennsylvania Department of Education, all Special Education students who come into contact with children, either through field-based or research experience in school settings and internships, must obtain and present to the Special Education Program Administrator (Sharon Warden) the following up-to-date (not more than one year old) clearance documents upon matriculation into their academic program:

FBI Federal Criminal History Record (Act 114): Obtain through Cogent Systems Fingerprint Services for PA found at www.pa.cogentid.com/PDE_Main.html

Pennsylvania State Police Criminal Records Check (Act 34): Use the attached form or request your record through the PATCH system found at https://epatch.state.pa.us/Home.jsp

Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance (Act 151): Use the attached form; additional information found at
www.dpw.state.pa.us/partnersproviders/childwelfare/003671038.htm

Mantoux Tuberculosis Screening or the results of a chest X-ray: Use the attached form. Click here for information about having this test done at Lehigh's Health Center.

Forms are also available from the Special Education Probram Administrator, in Iacocca Hall Room A320.

After obtaining your clearances documents, bring the original copies to the Special Education Program Office (Room A320, Iacocca Hall) so we can make copies for our records.

Before any student will be permitted to begin a field experience or initiate a research activity that involves school-based contact with children, the following conditions must be met:

• Either the Mantoux must be negative or the student must have a clear chest X-ray that is less than 5 years old.


• All three other documents show that “no record exists.”
  

Students will not be permitted to work with children until all documentation is clear; meaning that Mantoux or chest X-ray is negative and criminal background checks indicate that “no record exists.”

If any action is needed in response to any clearance check, that action is solely the responsibility of the student, not the program faculty or staff.

It is the student’s responsibility to keep clearance documents current by obtaining annual updates throughout his/her academic program and providing copies of them to the Special Education Program Administrator upon receipt.

Students must have up-to-date (not more than one year old), original
documents available for school administrators upon request during all field assignments. Failure to produce documentation upon request will result in removal from the schools.

Decisions to admit students into public school internship placements are solely the purview of school districts. The department and/or Special Education Program does not debate the merits of any school district decision in relation to clearance check results.

If a student is arrested during his/her field placement or research experience, the Special Education Program Coordinator will remove the student from the field placement or research experience pending dispensation of the arrest incident.

Click here to view Clearances Policy.