An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 3 – Hiring

Independent contractors or employees provided by a temporary placement agency do not need to complete the Form I-9. 357 Schools who fail to complete, retain, and present for inspection the Form I-9 are subject to civil fines of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000 for each first-time violation. 358 A school may also be subject to increased civil liability and/or criminal liability for a “pattern” or “practice” of violations. 359 Schools should retain copies of the Form I-9 in each employee’s personnel file. Federal law does not require employers to copy supporting documentation. However, if a school does copy the supporting documentation, it should do so for all employees regardless of what documentation is presented. We recommend that a school keep the original Form I-9 separate from the rest of the personnel file (similar to the way in which medical records are handled), so that if the DHS or the Department of Labor inspects them, the inspection can be done without breaching the confidentiality of other unrelated information in the personnel file. If a school discovers that a Form I-9 is not on file for a current employee, the school may require the employee to complete sections 1 and 2 of the form immediately. If the employee is unable to provide acceptable documentation, the school must terminate his or her employment, or risk being subject to penalties for knowingly continuing to employ an unauthorized worker. 360 B. R E -V ERIFICATION O F D OCUMENTS When an employee’s employment authorization or, in most cases, Employment Authorization Document expires, the school must re-verify his or her employment authorization no later than the date that the employment authorization expires. 361 The school may use Section 3 of Form I- 9, or if Section 3 has already been used for a previous reverification or update, the school should use Section 3 of a new Form I-9. 362 Reverification is never required for U.S. citizens and noncitizen nationals. 363 Schools may not re-verify the following documents after they expire: U.S. passports, U.S. passport cards, Alien Registration Receipt Cards/Permanent Resident Cards (Form I-551), and List B documents. 364 Schools must re-verify an employee’s employment authorization on Form I-9 no later than the date that the employee’s employment authorization or Employment Authorization Document expires, whichever is sooner. 365 Schools should implement a calendaring system to know when to re-verify documents. LCW Practice Advisor Notifying the employee of the re-verification process well in advance of the expiration date is good practice to allow the employee to obtain the necessary documentation. C. E-V ERIFY S YSTEM To improve the accuracy and integrity of the employment verification process, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services operates an electronic employment verification system called E-Verify. E-Verify is an Internet-based Verification Companion to Form I-9. It provides

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