Let the Chester School District’s recent blunder be a cautionary tale for districts like Butler, where the search for a top-level administrator continues.

Last week, Chester High School in Eastern Pennsylvania briefly hired a vice principal before learning he had a criminal record for exposing himself to women in South Carolina in 2003.

Freddie Dean Smith was employed for one day — May 2 — before district officials found out about of his criminal history and fired him.

While details remain sketchy — it’s a personnel matter, after all — the Chester incident exposes one of the uglier potential consequences of relaxing attitudes toward hiring standards — a relaxation exemplified in the “ban the box” initiative that Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law on Feb. 16, 2016. “Ban the box” means removing from job applications requirement to list criminal arrests — and in some cases, criminal convictions.

The new law limits information that can be released as part of employment-related criminal background checks. It requires law enforcement agencies to remove records of arrests or the filing of criminal charges where at least three years have elapsed from the time of the arrest, no conviction occurred, and there are no pending proceedings seeking a conviction. This part is not a big change. Pennsylvania employers already are not allowed to deny employment over an arrest that does not lead to a conviction.

However, there’s a second change in effect, thanks to the new law. Individuals with criminal records can now petition their county court to limit access to their criminal record. As a result, a background check might not contain as much information about an applicant’s past.

It bears repeating that the specifics surrounding Freddie Dean Smith’s criminal past remain unclear. His alleged convictions were 14 years ago in another state.

Even so, a perfunctory Google search reveals a slough of troubling reports and allegations involving Smith that should have raised red flags for any search committee.

One month after Pennsylvania enacted its “ban the box” legislation, a Baltimore newspaper reported that a charter school had fired Smith. In addition to the previously undisclosed convictions, the reports cited a doctorate that was revoked over claims that Smith plagiarized 30 percent of his dissertation.

Smith even claimed to be the grandson of George Edward Chalmers Hayes, one of the lawyers in the Brown v. Board of Education case. The only problem with that claim is that Hayes had no children or grandchildren.

“Ban the box” implies a spirit of trust and grace. Let’s give a second chance to worthy candidates who made a poor choice in the past.

A word of advice to the Butler School Board: Let’s have none of that. Be thorough in your search for a superintendent. Avoid the embarrassment Chester officials brought on themselves.