Substitute teachers in South Carolina will now have to undergo a criminal background check.

The South Carolina House of Representatives recently passed a bill that will require school districts to complete criminal background checks on substitute teachers. Although many districts currently complete checks on full-time teachers - and many on substitutes - there was no comprehensive requirement.

The new bill requires the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to complete background checks free of charge to school districts. In addition, any member of the public will be able to run a background check on the SLED Web site for a fee of $25.

"It is timely and it's needed, and it's something that those of us in the General Assembly thought, 'Well, don't we already do this?' And the answer was not really," Rep. Jenny Anderson Horne told WSPA. "The State Board of Education had determined that there were individuals out there who had been denied certification at the state level and a lot of times those people were actively substituting in the public schools. Usually it was for a reason related to their background."

More lawmakers were pushing for such a bill after a substitute teacher in West Columbia was recently charged with sexually abusing four boys over a period of seven years until 2007. That teacher also worked for an after-school program.

While background checks required for teachers receiving certification consider all records throughout the country, the background checks on substitutes will only include those records found in South Carolina. Even so, the measure should be beneficial, given the popularity and growth of the state's education industry.

South Carolina's education and health services industry employed 211,100 workers during December 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is up from 210,300 workers during November and a 1.1 percent increase from December 2008.