“As the mother of two sons, I believe we must take every possible step to protect our children. A key part of keeping our children safe is ensuring that schools have access to national criminal databases in order to check the backgrounds of new employees. The SAFE Act will help ensure that schools will not unknowingly hire sexual predators or other violent criminals, putting children at grave risk,” said Rep. Schwartz.

Prior to being signed into law, the U.S. Senate must take up the Safe Act. Rep. Schwartz urged her Senate colleagues to not only support this plan, but to also take action promptly so that the bill can be enacted prior to the start of the 2006-2007 school year.

“Since school districts will soon begin hiring new staff for next fall, it is critical that the Senate take up this common sense plan quickly to ensure student safety,” said Schwartz.  

During her tenure in the State Senate, Rep. Schwartz was well known across Pennsylvania for her advocacy efforts in pushing for increased scrutiny of childcare and school employees. In 2001, Schwartz led a successful campaign that resulted in the Ridge Administration backing down from a policy that would have allowed child abusers or felons to collect state subsidies for providing childcare.

Specifically, Schwartz’s work resulted in the Ridge Administration changing state regulations to ensure that criminal background checks would be conducted on all childcare providers, as well as prohibiting state funds from going to child abusers and convicted violent felons. 

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