FAIRFAX, Va. — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is calling for a better communication system between law enforcement and school officials after a northern Virginia counselor managed to work under the radar despite his sex crime arrest and conviction.
Fairfax County Public Schools recently terminated 50-year-old Darren Thornton from his role as a counselor at Glasgow Middle School after officials learned he was convicted of soliciting sex from a juvenile months earlier.
The crime happened in Chesterfield County, outside of Richmond, in November 2020. The police department tried to notify FCPS about his arrest a day after but the emails bounced back. It appeared there was never a follow-up despite the emails returning to the sender's spam folder as undeliverable.
Thornton not only registered as a sex offender weeks later, he was arrested again for allegedly soliciting prostitution online.
Virginia State Police arrested Thornton in August for sex offender registry violations. A search online shows he listed his work as "self-employed" even though he was an FCPS employee.
"There's clearly a failure of the notification system," Youngkin said during a back-to-school rally in Annandale on Wednesday. "There's clearly a failure on the consistent application of the screening that needs to go in to teachers every year. And there's clearly a failure on behalf of a number of local government authorities."
Thornton was employed at FCPS prior to his original arrest in 2020 and passed a background check.
WUSA9 asked FCPS if there was another round of background checks for employees or matching names to arrest records following the scandal to avoid a similar problem. We have yet to receive a direct answer.
State lawmakers anticipate a legislation to help improve the notification system in the state.
Senator Scott Surovell (D-District 36) who represents a part of Fairfax County, informed the Virginia Department of Education of temporary solutions to create a more systematic approach to sharing arrest information with school divisions.
"We ought to make the law clear that the Virginia Department of Education is to maintain a public list of where these notices are to go, what email address, what phone number, and then law enforcement is to notify the school division through both email and fax on that list," Surovell said.
Youngkin agreed a better communication line and believes addressing the problem will not be a partisan issue.
"I think this idea of a transparent transfer of information so that there is not any kind of bounced email or failure for a superintendent to in fact do the work to make sure that if someone has been arrested, they don't know," Youngkin said.