Registered Sex Offender Allowed To Work At Halifax County School
State law does not require school systems to perform background checks on potential employees. Parents in Halifax County are asking how an registered sex offender was able to work in the school system.
Glenda Browder, a parent and substitute teacher for Halifax schools, said she was surprised to hear that
Eric Singleton
, a registered sex offender, was allowed to briefly teach at Northwest High School.
"I know that when we fill out applications for substitute teaching, they had all sorts of background checks, physicals, TB tests. They checked everything thoroughly on us, so I don't see why they did find that out," she said.
The Halifax County board of education would not tell WRAL whether it performed a background check on Singleton. An official from the school system said Singleton taught at Northwest last fall. He worked for a couple of months and later moved on.
Brien Boyce, a reporter for
The Daily Herald
at Roanoke Rapids, said he was able to find out information about Singleton by going to the
North Carolina Sex Offender Registry
online.
"It's surprising and concerned someone like me can find what a entire school system was not able to," Boyce said.
Singleton is no longer working for the school system.