eLicensing Verification Access for School Districts, Charter Schools, and Educator Preparation Programs

eLicensing Verification Access for School Districts and Charter Schools

(COOL) eLicensing Verification Access provides Human Resources personnel with real-time, comprehensive information on Colorado educators in the areas of:

• Current and historical licenses, endorsements, and authorizations
• Submitted/In-progress applications
• CDE background check status
• Criminal history information received from CBI/FBI from the submission of a fingerprint card to CBI
  • If you are searching for a student teacher, they can be searched by SSN only
• Subsequent arrest information received from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
• PLACE and Praxis exam scores, if available (exam score reports should be obtained from either PLACE and or Praxis by the test taker)

eLicensing Verification Access for Certification/Licensure Officers of Educator Preparation Programs

• CDE background check status*
• Criminal history information received from CBI/FBI from the submission of a fingerprint card to CBI*
• Subsequent arrest information received from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI)*

*Available for the duration of the educator preparation program

eLicensing Verification Access Requirements

• Access may be granted to employees of a Colorado school district or BOCES, to the governing board or direct employees of a charter school or to certification/licensure officers that oversee a Colorado approved educator preparation program that places student teachers in classrooms. Access is not guaranteed, is not automatic and is solely at the discretion of CDE. Upon determination of qualification, CDE will create a COOL account for you and contact you with log in information.
• To obtain access, you must:
  • submit an online application (button below),
    • complete one of the forms explained in the next section where you are requesting to be approved by CDE as a Licensing Coordinator (LC), School District Official (SDO), Authorized User (AU) or an Educator Preparation Program Licensing Coordinator (EPP/LC).
    • confirm your role within your district/BOCES/charter school or EPP to be evaluated by CDE.
    • You must provide and be able to access an email account with a school district, charter school or college/university domain. Use of personal email accounts will result in denial or revocation of access as they are forbidden.
• Completion of only a form listed below does not constitute an application and CDE will not grant access with only the form. You must apply for access via COOL. Please do not email or mail your forms to us, they must be uploaded into your application request for access or continued access.
• If you hold a credential with CDE, the account used for eLicensing Verification Access will be separate from your personal account and registered under your school district email.

Once access is granted:

• Access expires each year on your birth date (if you are a first time applicant, this means that for the first year, access will be valid for less than one year)
  • You can apply to renew your access 1 month prior to your birthday to maintain access. A new applicable form will need to be submitted in your application.
• School districts/BOCES/charter schools: You may search for individuals by name, date of birth, EDID or full SSN.
• College/universities: You may search via students' school identification numbers for field experience students being placed in classrooms. This information is only available for the duration of the students educator preparation program. Each program provider can only view students enrolled in their program, you cannot view results where students may be enrolled in another college/universities program.

eLicensing Verification Access Roles and Responsibilities

Subsequent Arrest Reporting

After March 2017, subsequent arrest records for individuals who have been fingerprinted for CDE will only be available through CDE’s eLicensing Verification Access, which provides several benefits:

• Secure - Access to these sensitive records will be monitored by CDE and limited to only individuals who have been granted access to the system based on approval by CDE and district/public charter school leadership.
• Timely - The Subsequent Arrest Report Query will return results in real-time as they are received into CDEs database.
• Comprehensive - Reports will no longer only be provided in weekly increments. Individuals with permissions to use the Subsequent Arrest Report Query can now access all records housed in CDEs database at their convenience.

Q. How do I receive access to view subsequent arrest records using the Subsequent Arrest Report Query?

A. For school districts/charter schools, you will need to apply for this access as an HR employee of a public school district, BOCES, or charter school in Colorado. School District Officials who apply for this access and approved Licensing Coordinators are automatically granted access to the Subsequent Arrest Query in COOL. As an Authorized User, your Licensing Coordinator may decide to designate on your Authorized User request form that your access permissions will include the Subsequent Arrest Report Query. For EPP/LC, there is no lookup but any subsequent arrest report will be available by looking your student up via their college/university identification number.

Q. I am a district superintendent, but am not my district’s Licensing Coordinator. How do I receive access to the subsequent arrest reporting functions in COOL?

A. You will apply using the same process followed by a Licensing Coordinator; however you will be designated as the School District Official (SDO) for your district. Your Licensing Coordinator will still manage the ongoing and day-to-day duties for your district and sign off on Authorized Users, however you will have access to all of the reporting functions of the eLicensing Verification Access and the Subsequent Arrest Report Query through your district's COOL account. You will need to reactivate your access yearly on your birth date.

Q. I am a Director of Human Resources, Human Resources Manager, etc. but am not my district’s Licensing Coordinator. How do I receive access to the subsequent arrest reporting functions in COOL?

A. You can gain access to the system as an Authorized User with subsequent arrest report permissions through a COOL account tied to your district credentials. You can have your district’s Licensing Coordinator designate you as an Authorized User and mark the Subsequent Arrest Notification checkbox. You will need to reactivate your access yearly on your birth date.

Q. I am NOT an employee of a public school district, BOCES or public charter school in Colorado. How do I receive information about an educator's criminal history or subsequent arrests?

A. If you are employed by a nonpublic school in Colorado, there are two options you can take to receive this information

• Option 1: Pursuant to §22-1-131 C.R.S., a nonpublic school may make an inquiry to CDE concerning the background of an employee. To facilitate the inquiry, the nonpublic school shall require the employee to submit fingerprints, along with their processing fee, to the CBI. The nonpublic school shall then provide a list of the name, date of birth and SSN (last 4) of the employees who submitted fingerprints to the Enforcement Unit of CDE at CDEBackgroundLicensingUnit@cde.state.co.us. This list will be utilized when the fingerprint results are received by our office from the CBI. Once all of the results have been received, our office will contact the non-public school notifying if the person has a criminal history or not. CDE does not conduct any type of background investigation and that responsibility falls upon the nonpublic school. Subsequent arrest reports are not available to nonpublic schools from our office pursuant to §22-2-119(4)(b).

• Option 2: If you need to obtain background information for an individual, and you wish to receive subsequent arrest notifications directly you may want to consider utilizing the Volunteer Employee Criminal History Services (VECHS) program offered by the CBI in conjunction with the FBI. Once you have been approved into the VECHS program, you will send fingerprints, along with their processing fee, to the CBI. The results of that check are sent directly back to you as well as any future subsequent arrest reports.The rules and regulations for the VECHS program apply to any public or private, for-profit, non-profit or volunteer organization that provides care or care placement services to any child, elderly person or person with disabilities for whom the organization provides care.