Porters Chapel Academy officials need to revisit the school’s policy on hiring, and when they do, they should keep in mind their own mission statement, which reads in part:

“Porter’s Chapel Academy strives to train young people through a well-rounded Christian education, thereby preparing them for life as leaders who will choose character before career, wisdom beyond scholarship, service before self and participation as a way of life.”

Case in point, a man hired last summer to serve as a strength and conditioning coach for all sports— and therefore in direct contact with students — was arrested last week and charged with bank robbery.

He is the same man who served five years in prison after being convicted in Harrison County in 1995 of bank robbery, armed robbery, burglary and uttering a forgery.

He also is the same man who was arrested and charged with felony embezzlement in Vicksburg and saw the charge dropped only after restitution was made.

Porters Chapel apparently performed no background check on 45-year-old Derrick Collins, and the information about his criminal background came out only after Britton & Koontz’s branch on U.S. 61 North was robbed. Warren County deputies were led on a high-speed chase and Collins’ vehicle crashed into one driven by a law enforcement officer.

The school’s response was a one-paragraph statement that read Collins was not a classroom teacher. That matters little — he had contact with students and, presumably, was a person with authority over them.

Back to that mission statement. Were school officials so interested in beefing up the school’s athletics with this particular coach that they sacrificed their own principles?

Did they “choose character before career, wisdom beyond scholarship”?

We think not.

Was his background checked? Did it matter?

We think not.

There will be a next time for the private school to hire an employee.

Please, for the sake of the students, don’t let this happen again.