HB1105 expands Maryland’s school- and child-care hiring safeguards for positions involving direct contact with minors. It requires county boards of education, nonpublic schools, child care centers, youth-serving organizations, and contracting agencies to collect more detailed applicant information, including prior employers, signed consent to release records, and written disclosures about any investigations, discipline, resignation, or licensing action related to child sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, or the newly defined category of “boundary-violating behavior.” The bill also requires a child protective services background clearance through the Department of Human Services’ MyDHR portal before hiring.
The bill strengthens the pre-employment review process by requiring employers to contact prior employers, request Department reports on certification and discipline, and obtain CPS background clearances. It also tightens rules for emergent employees and substitute staff, limits unsupervised work while reviews are pending, and allows sharing of employment-history reviews among school entities and contracting agencies. In addition, it prohibits confidentiality or severance agreements from suppressing abuse-related information, preserves reporting obligations, and creates liability protections for good-faith disclosures.
HB1105 also adds a new reporting requirement: each county board must annually report its training program, screening policies, and employee code of conduct to the State Department of Education, and the Department must compile and send that information to the General Assembly each year. The bill amends the Education Article and would take effect July 1, 2025, affecting hiring, recordkeeping, and reporting practices across public schools, nonpublic schools, child care centers, youth programs, and school contractors.
The available context shows no committee transcript or recorded votes, so there is no documented floor or committee debate to gauge sentiment directly. Based on the bill text, the measure appears to be framed as a child-safety and accountability bill, with a clear emphasis on preventing abuse and improving transparency in hiring. Because the bill broadens screening obligations and reporting duties, likely points of concern would include administrative burden, privacy of applicant records, and the scope of the new “boundary-violating behavior” standard, but no specific opposition is documented in the provided materials.
The bill amends Education Article § 6-113.2 and adds new § 6-113.3, extending employment-history review and background-clearance requirements to child care centers and youth-serving organizations in addition to county boards, nonpublic schools, and contracting agencies. It also incorporates a new defined category of “boundary-violating behavior,” expands disclosure and review obligations, restricts certain confidentiality agreements, and requires annual state-level reporting on screening policies and conduct codes. These changes would affect hiring procedures, personnel records, and compliance duties for schools, child care providers, youth programs, and entities that contract to serve them.
No committee transcript or vote record was provided, so there is no direct evidence of support or opposition from legislators in the available context. The bill’s text suggests a generally protective, child-safety-oriented purpose, and its sponsors appear to be advancing stronger screening and reporting standards for adults working with minors. The absence of recorded debate means sentiment can only be inferred from the bill’s structure, which is preventive and accountability-focused rather than controversial on its face.
The main potential points of contention are the breadth of the new screening requirements and the addition of “boundary-violating behavior” as a trigger for disclosure, investigation history, and discipline-related reporting. Employers and contractors may view the bill as imposing additional administrative and compliance burdens, especially because it requires contacting prior employers, obtaining CPS clearances, and maintaining records for multiple categories of workers, including substitutes and emergent employees. Privacy and due-process concerns may also arise from the expanded sharing of applicant information and the limits placed on settlement or severance agreements, but no specific objections are documented in the provided materials.