Sex offender screening API for schools & childcare
Screen staff, substitutes, and volunteers against every US sex-offender registry with source-verified results — purpose-built for organizations working with children.
25 free searches, no card. $0.15 a call, no platform fee, no seats, no minimum. No code needed: search from your dashboard, or integrate the full API when you’re ready.
curl https://api.offendersearch.app/v1/search \ -H "X-API-Key: $OFFENDERSEARCH_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"query": {"firstName": "Rosa", "lastName": "Alvarez", "dob": "1984-06-02", "ageTolerance": 1}}' // response { "status": "complete", "elapsedMs": 410, "counts": { "records": 0, "sourcesQueried": 58, "sourcesComplete": 58, "sourcesIncomplete": 0 }, "records": [] } // a volunteer in the season’s batch { "matchState": "dob_match", "matchConfidence": 0.98, "matchBasis": ["lastName:exact", "firstName", "dob"] }
Making a hiring decision? Use an FCRA workflow.
If a result will help decide whether to hire someone, the check has to run as an FCRA-regulated consumer report, with a permissible purpose, consent, accuracy controls and a dispute path for the person. Our standard search and API are not a consumer report, and standard results are never used for that decision. FCRA workflows run through FCRA Partner Access, for background check companies and screening platforms under a written FCRA agreement.
FCRA pricing is quoted per partner, so contact us for pricing.
Screening challenges for schools, childcare providers, and youth programs
- Volunteers and substitutes cycle through quickly
- Applicants may have registered in another state
- A single miss is unacceptable when children are involved
What sex offender screening gives schools, childcare providers, and youth programs
Screen every staff member, substitute, and volunteer
Cover out-of-state history in one call
Keep a source-verified screening record
Run one screening policy across every campus in a network
Schools & Childcare sex offender check API: request and response. One POST per person, or the same search from the dashboard with no code.
curl https://api.offendersearch.app/v1/search \ -H "X-API-Key: $OFFENDERSEARCH_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"query": {"firstName": "Rosa", "lastName": "Alvarez", "dob": "1984-06-02", "ageTolerance": 1}}' // response { "status": "complete", "elapsedMs": 410, "counts": { "records": 0, "sourcesQueried": 58, "sourcesComplete": 58, "sourcesIncomplete": 0 }, "records": [] } // a volunteer in the season’s batch { "matchState": "dob_match", "matchConfidence": 0.98, "matchBasis": ["lastName:exact", "firstName", "dob"] }
Send what you have. Name and date of birth; age or birth year when that is all you hold. Date of birth drives matchState: dob_match, year_match, age_match or no_dob_age_year.
Read the counts. sourcesComplete against sourcesQueried says whether all 58 registries answered, so a partial search is never read as a clear one.
Branch on the score. matchConfidence and matchBasis on every record, with the registry cited.
| Person | Checked for | Result | Answered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rosa Alvarez | visitor sign-in | No match | 58 / 58 |
| Jordan Sample | visitor sign-in | Match · dob_match | 58 / 58 |
| J. Sample | visitor sign-in | Review · year_match | 58 / 58 |
Read the API docs › · Search from the dashboard › · Screen a CSV without code ›
Sex offender screening built for schools & childcare. One key, one schema, one stored record of every check.
US-wide coverage
Catch out-of-state registrations, not just the local registry.
Fast volunteer screening
Low-latency calls make it practical to screen every volunteer, every season.
Source-verified results
Each match carries source provenance for your records.
One account for a charter network
A management organization can screen for every campus it serves under one key, with teammates at each school and one usage record for the network.
Visitors and one-day volunteers
Screen parents, contractors and field-trip chaperones at sign-in from the name and date of birth on their ID — the people a staff-only policy never reaches.
Monitoring between rechecks
The five-year recheck is the legal floor. Monitoring alerts you when a screened person’s registry status changes in between, so a change is not left waiting for the next cycle.
Read next: School visitor screening API · Visitor screening API
Schools & Childcare screening: what the law requires
Child care carries the cleanest registry-search mandate in US law. Under the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a qualifying check is not one search but five, and — unusually — the sex offender component is named separately from the FBI fingerprint check rather than being satisfied by it. It is also multi-state by construction: the duty follows where the staff member has lived, not where they now work. Note the contrast with K-12, where the federal picture is far thinner than vendor marketing suggests.
| Jurisdiction | Citation | Applies to | What it requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | 45 CFR § 98.43(b) | Staff | A qualifying check comprises an FBI fingerprint check using Next Generation Identification; a search of the NCIC National Sex Offender Registry; and searches of the state criminal repository, the state sex offender registry and the state child abuse and neglect registry. |
| Federal | 45 CFR § 98.43(b)(3) | Staff | Those state-level registry searches must be run in the state where the staff member resides and in every state where they resided during the preceding five years. |
| Federal | 45 CFR § 98.43 | Staff | Existing staff must be rechecked not less than once during each five-year period. |
| Federal | 42 U.S.C. § 9858f | Staff | The underlying statute requiring states receiving CCDBG funds to have these requirements in effect for child care staff members. |
| California | Cal. Penal Code § 290.46(j) | Data users | Megan’s Law information may be used only to protect a person at risk; use for employment or education is prohibited except as that clause or another law authorizes. |
And what it doesn’t
K-12 is the common misconception, and it is worth stating flatly. 20 U.S.C. § 7926 — often cited as “the federal school background check law” — mandates no such thing; it prohibits assisting a person known to have engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor to obtain a new job. Actual K-12 screening duties are state law and vary widely. The SafeSport Act likewise imposes reporting, training and one-on-one contact limits, not background checks. If a vendor tells you a federal statute requires you to screen teachers, ask them to name the section.
Citations link to the primary text. This is background, not legal advice: obligations change, and your counsel is the right reader of your own facts.
Screening practices for schools, childcare providers, and youth programs. Record what you checked, not just what you found.
| NJ | New Jersey · answered | 0 |
| NY | New York · answered | 0 |
| PA | Pennsylvania · answered | 0 |
| FL | Florida · answered | 0 |
| TX | Texas · answered | 0 |
Treat the registry search as its own step. The CCDF check names the sex offender component separately from the FBI fingerprint check for a reason: a fingerprint result does not report registration status. Facilities that assume the print check covers it have a gap that surfaces at audit.
Follow the residence history, not the payroll address. The five-year residence rule is the operative difficulty. A single-state search satisfies the letter of nothing if your staff member lived in two other states during the lookback.
Diary the five-year recheck at hire. The recheck interval is easy to satisfy and easy to forget. Setting the date when the first check clears is more reliable than any annual sweep.
Screen volunteers on the same basis as staff. Unpaid adults with unsupervised access present the same risk and are the group most often left out of a screening policy written around employment.
Check visitors at the door, not only staff. Parents, contractors and one-day volunteers never pass through HR. A registry check at sign-in — name and date of birth from the ID, a scored answer before the badge prints — closes the gap a staff-only policy leaves open.
Run it centrally across a charter network. A management organization serving many campuses gets one policy, one account and one audit trail instead of each school improvising its own. Teammates at each campus run their checks under the same key.
Registry and criminal records for schools & childcare, on one key. Most schools, childcare providers, and youth programs need more than one check, and running two vendors means two integrations, two contracts and two invoices.
Sex offender registry
58 US registries, continuously updated, with photographs, aliases, addresses and the official record citation on every match. 1.5M records in one schema.
Sex offender API ›Criminal records
1,408 county jail rosters, 53 state corrections systems, courts, warrants and federal custody, almost 50 million records in the same scored, source-cited schema. Same key, same price.
Criminal background checks for schools & childcare ›FCRA background checks
When a result decides a hire or a tenancy, the check runs as an FCRA order through FCRA Partner Access: consent, the check, disputes and adverse-action steps. Pricing is quoted per partner.
FCRA Partner Access ›Coverage today: 1,914 criminal jurisdictions catalogued, 1,564 live, 51 states + DC + federal. See what each state publishes, or the live list at /v1/criminal/sources.
What schools & childcare screening costs per check. $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month. No platform fee, no seats, no minimum.
| Line | How it is counted | Units | Rate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visitor sign-ins | 24 campuses × ~30 a day × 20 days | 14,400 | $0.15 → $0.11 | $1,664.00 |
| Volunteer batch | the season’s new volunteers, per row | 600 | $0.11 | $66.00 |
| Person monitors | regular volunteers between seasons | 400 | $3 / mo | $1,200.00 |
| Location monitors | one radius per campus | 24 | $10 / mo | $240.00 |
| FCRA orders for hiring decisions | quoted per partner | as used | contact | — |
| Month | no platform fee, no seats, no minimum | 15,000 calls | $3,170.00 |
| Checks / month | Cost | Per check |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $75.00 | $0.1500 |
| 5,000 | $630.00 | $0.1260 |
| 50,000 | $5,580.00 | $0.1116 |
A batch is billed per row, so bulk screening costs the same per person as a single lookup. No setup fee, no per-seat licence, no monthly minimum on search and no annual contract, so the price scales down with you as well as up. A fraction of what legacy screening platforms charge.
The background check API · screen a CSV without code. More for developers: the free background check API tier, background check API pricing, the employment screening API and tenant screening API, and the background check API in Python and background check API in Node.js tutorials.
Schools & Childcare screening FAQ
For anything else, talk to sales or read the API docs.
Can we screen large volunteer cohorts at once?
Yes. Run searches in bulk; metered pricing means you only pay per call with a volume rate after 2,000 calls a month.
Do you cover every state a family might have lived in?
A default search runs across all 58 US registries, so prior out-of-state registrations are covered.
Can a charter management organization screen for all its schools?
Yes. One account covers the network: each campus runs checks under the same key, and the usage record shows the whole network in one place. That gives a management organization one policy and one audit trail rather than one per school.
Does this replace the fingerprint check?
No. Where a fingerprint check or an NCIC National Sex Offender Registry search is required, it runs through your state’s designated agency. A multi-state registry search helps you cover the other states a person has lived in; confirm with your licensing agency whether a commercial search satisfies its process.
Can we screen school visitors, not just staff?
Yes. Send the name and date of birth from the visitor’s ID at sign-in and get a scored answer before the badge prints. Visitor management vendors can build the same check into their kiosks.
What about schools in California?
California restricts use of Megan’s Law information for employment and education unless the use protects a person at risk or another law authorizes it (Penal Code § 290.46(j)). Have counsel confirm how your screening program fits before relying on California results.
Related
Screen schools, childcare providers, and youth programs with one API
Screen staff, substitutes, and volunteers against every US sex-offender registry with source-verified results — purpose-built for organizations working with children.