The duty is yours, not the school’s
If your organisation has a contract with a California school or district and your people will be on campus around pupils, the background check obligation sits with you. Not with the school.
Under Education Code 45125.1, the contracting entity submits its employees’ fingerprints to the Department of Justice, receives the results, and then certifies in writing to the school district that no one requiring certification has a disqualifying conviction. The district never sees the records themselves. It sees your certification.
That single arrangement explains almost everything organisations find confusing about this process — including the question that stops most of them cold.
Can your organisation actually receive criminal history?
To do what the statute asks, you need to be able to receive DOJ results. That is not automatic, and it is not something a Live Scan provider can do on your behalf.
It requires two things:
- An ORI — an originating agency identifier issued by the DOJ, which appears on the Request for Live Scan form and tells the DOJ where to send results.
- A designated Custodian of Records — a named person at your organisation responsible for the security of the criminal history you receive. It is its own applicant type, with its own DOJ form (BCIA 8016CUS) and its own background check.
If your organisation has both, you are an agency of record and the Education Code route works exactly as written. If it does not, you cannot receive results at all — and that is where most nonprofits and smaller vendors discover they have a problem, usually the week before a contract starts.
Route one: you are an agency of record
This is the clean path.
You issue your employees a Request for Live Scan carrying your own ORI. They are printed. The DOJ returns the results to you, and notifies you directly of any disqualifying information. You then certify to the district in writing that your people are clear.
The district gets the assurance it needs and no criminal history changes hands. That is the design, not a loophole.
This applies to districts, and it applies equally to charter schools — a charter can hold its own ORI and act as its own agency of record exactly as a district does.
Route two: you are not an agency of record
Plenty of organisations are not. A small nonprofit sending tutors or mentors onto campus, a service contractor with a handful of staff, a new vendor with its first school contract.
There is no version of the Education Code route available to them, because there is nowhere for the DOJ to send results.
What exists instead is the record review — an individual’s request for a copy of their own California criminal history, on DOJ form BCIA 8016RR. And the critical detail is where the result goes.
It is mailed to the individual. The form allows the applicant to name a designee under Penal Code section 11124 — an attorney, for example — but the form states plainly: “Designee — Do not include Employer.” There is no configuration in which the organisation receives it.
So anything your organisation sees is something the individual has chosen to hand over. That is how the channel is built, and it is worth understanding before you rely on it, because whether a district accepts it varies. Some will. Some will not. Confirm with the specific school before you send twenty people to be fingerprinted.
Note also that a record review is DOJ only. If a federal check is also required, that is a separate process entirely.
Should you get your own ORI?
Most organisations that regularly place people on campuses would qualify for one. The DOJ has an application process for authorisation, and the practical question is rarely eligibility — it is whether you have enough ongoing need to justify setting it up and maintaining a Custodian of Records.
A rough way to think about it: if this is one contract and a handful of people, the effort may not be worth it. If school work is part of what your organisation does, and you expect to keep placing staff on campuses, becoming an agency of record removes a recurring obstacle permanently — and removes the awkwardness of asking employees to obtain and hand over their own records.
What about the FBI check?
Some school contracts and many other roles call for a federal check as well. That is a wholly separate process — the FBI’s own channel, producing an Identity History Summary, and it is the same check people obtain for immigration, visas and apostilles.
It is not part of a California record review and it is not covered by a DOJ ORI. We handle it routinely; our FBI background check page explains that route in full.
Who this page does not cover
Two groups nearby, with different answers:
People the school employs directly — credentialed teachers, substitutes, classified staff, custodial and maintenance employees. The district is the agency of record and issues the Request for Live Scan itself, on its own ORI, with results going to the district. If you are being hired by a school, ask them for the form.
Parent and community volunteers — a different requirement again, usually DOJ-level and arranged through the school. We see a lot of these, often referred by the schools themselves, and they have their own page: fingerprinting for school volunteers.
What to do first
- Ask the district what it requires and what it will accept — DOJ only, or DOJ and FBI; and if you are not an agency of record, whether it will accept record reviews. Get that answer before anyone is fingerprinted.
- Establish whether your organisation has an ORI and a Custodian of Records. If nobody is certain, it does not.
- Decide whether to apply for authorisation or to run this contract another way.
- Then print. Fingerprints taken under the wrong ORI, or the wrong applicant type, do not count — and are paid for twice.
Where we come in
We do the fingerprinting for organisations on both routes — agency-of-record submissions under your own ORI, and record reviews where that is what the situation allows. We travel to worksites, which matters when you need to print a whole team at once rather than sending people out one at a time.
If you are not sure which route applies to your organisation, that is a short conversation rather than a quote, and a much cheaper one to have before a contract start date than after.
Frequently asked questions
Does the school district see my employees’ criminal records?
No. Under Education Code 45125.1 the DOJ notifies the employer, and the employer certifies in writing to the district that its employees are clear. The district receives the certification, not the records.
What is an ORI, and why does my organisation need one?
An originating agency identifier, assigned by the DOJ. It appears on the Request for Live Scan form and directs where results are sent. Without one, there is nowhere for the DOJ to send your employees’ results.
What is a Custodian of Records?
The person at your organisation designated as responsible for the security of criminal history information you receive. It is its own DOJ applicant type with its own form and its own background check, and it is required for an organisation to hold an ORI.
Can my employees just get their own background check and show it to us?
They can obtain a record review of their own California criminal history, and the DOJ mails it to them. The form expressly bars naming the employer as the designee, so it cannot be sent to your organisation directly. Whether a district accepts that arrangement varies, so confirm before relying on it.
Can a charter school be its own agency of record?
Yes. A charter can hold its own ORI and act as an agency of record in the same way a district does.
Is a record review the same as an FBI background check?
No. A California record review is DOJ only. A federal check runs through the FBI’s own channel and produces an Identity History Summary — the same document used for apostilles and immigration.
