National Criminal Background Check (NCBC) Requirements
Illinois State University (ISU) is transitioning, in the Fall of 2019, to requiring all ISU teacher candidates to complete a one-time online National Criminal Background Check. The new NCBC will replace our previously required yearly Illinois State Police criminal background check. The NCBC will offer greater expansion into criminal histories to ensure the protection of ours pre K-12 students by verifying the teacher candidate has not been convicted of illegal activity nationally. The steps below must be followed with results being reported to the Teacher Education Center before students may begin any clinical experience.
Previous Illinois State Police criminal background checks already processed in the Teacher Education Center are still valid until expiration (1 year after obtained). If students have questions about validity, they can e-mail teacheredcenter@ilstu.edu
The NCBC will cost $36 and be valid for 10 years, while any previous Illinois State Police CBC is only valid for one year.
The NCBC will also be completely online through Bushue Background Screening and be completed by following our NCBC process below.
The NCBC meets the internal ISU milestone requirement for the Criminal Background Check. Students will be responsible for meeting all clinical site (schools) CBC requirements, which are separate of the ISU internal NCBC requirement. Students should contact clinical sites and follow their CBC expectations before beginning clinical experiences.
Once ready to proceed, open the Bushue companies, ISU Education Background Check Link below and complete all pages, forms and processing fee ($36) to initiate your NCBC check.
Once you initiate your NCBC, your records will be reviewed at the county, state and federal levels. Once all of those levels have been reviewed, your results will be returned to ISU for final processing by the Teacher Education Center.
This takes a minimum of 3-5 business days after you start the NCBC online for results to be received by the Teacher Education Center, with some county checks taking up to 10 business days to be fully processed.
Your professor may want to see your completed CBC milestone. For how to access this information to print for your professor, please view our tracking your progress document.
If you have already completed the former CBC process, and you have sent it to the Teacher Education Center, you will NOT need to complete this process until the time your CBC expires (1 year from issued date). If you currently have a valid CBC from an outside group, please contact the Teacher Education Center staff at teacheredcenter@ilstu.edu and we will determine if it can be accepted during our Fall 2019 transition.