Background Checks & Reporting

Background checks through Iowa’s Single Contact Repository (SING) are required for all teacher education students before their first classroom experience. There are multiple triggers for needing a background check:

• All teacher education students. Complete the initial SING background check prior to your first classroom experience.
• Early childhood education majors and minors. Background checks for these majors expire every two years. After completing your initial background check, you must complete a second check two years later. (FBI fingerprinting also required. See below.) 
• All student teachers. Complete an additional SING background check within six months prior to student teaching. 

The fee is $15 per background check (initial, second and student teaching). You can pay via card in our SING Background Check program, or by cash or check. Make checks payable to UNI Teacher Education and bring your check or cash payment to the College of Education Advising and Teacher Education Success Office (CATS), 151 SEC. If making a cash payment, our office can only accept exact change.

For this background check, the Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) will review the Child Abuse Registry, Dependent Abuse Registry, Iowa Criminal History Record and Sex Offender Registry to ensure the safety of children in PreK-12 schools. 

Early childhood education majors and minors must complete this additional background check prior to their first classroom experience. UNI partners with Fieldprint to collect and process your fingerprints. Begin the process by completing all three pages of the Waiver Agreement and Privacy Act Statement. You can email images or the completed form to teachereducation@uni.edu. Once all three pages are received, we will email you the necessary instructions and code needed to complete your Fieldprint fingerprinting.

You can go to the Fieldprint website to view locations nearest to you, as well as a list of accepted forms of ID as you need to bring both a primary and secondary form of identification to your appointment. There is no cost to complete this process.

When your fingerprints have been captured electronically, your prints will be sent to the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) in Des Moines. Once processed, the CATS Office will receive an official letter with your results.  

• Cleared: Your date of clearance will be entered in the Certificate Viewer which you can then access via these instructions.  
• Not Cleared: Specific instructions will be sent to you from the CATS Office.

For questions pertaining to the FBI fingerprinting process please contact the UNI College of Education Advising and Teacher Teacher Education Success Office (CATS) in 151 Schindler Education Center by emailing teachereducation@uni.edu or by calling 319-273-2265.