HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania lawmaker on Wednesday proposed a lifetime ban on working in schools for those convicted of some of the most serious and violent criminal offenses.

The state already has a list of offenses that trigger a five-year ban on school employment, but Jeffrey E. Piccola, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, proposed at an informational meeting to expand the list and extend the ban for life.

The list now includes homicide and sexual offenses, among others. The new bill would add bestiality, incest, prostitution and several crimes involving child victims to the list.

"I for the life of me don't understand why anybody with that kind of record should be employed by one of our schools in close proximity to children," said Piccola, R-Dauphin.

He also has proposed a 10-year school employment ban for those convicted of first-degree misdemeanors, such as drunken driving, and second-degree misdemeanors, such as shoplifting or passing a bad check.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association supports the proposals with minor changes, said assistant director Tim Allwein.

"Which of us wants our sons and daughters in the same building with a person who has committed these crimes?" Allwein said. But he cautioned that the lifetime ban could be rife for legal challenges in state appeals court, leading to litigation costs for districts.

Piccola said that possibility did not worry him.

"It's my humble opinion that any fair-minded individual or fair-minded Supreme Court justice would uphold this lifetime ban," Piccola said. "If they don't — make my day."

James P. Testerman, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said the teachers' union does not support the lifetime ban for some of the crimes and believes the list of misdemeanors that could trigger a decade-long ban may be too broad.

"There are some off-the-wall things that would qualify," he said. He didn't specify which misdemeanors he was referring to.

Piccola wants to give school administrators greater leeway to conduct criminal history checks on current employees if they have some reason to think the employee has been convicted of a crime.