The Newton school district will expand its criminal background checks of all new hires in response to the arrest this past winter of an elementary school teacher on child pornography charges, Superintendent David Fleishman announced Tuesday night.

School administrators will start checking new employees against the Sex Offender Registry Information system to ensure that potential workers have not been convicted of sex crimes in other states. Newton has been conducting similar checks on municipal employees for more than a decade, but this would be a new procedure for the school department, human resources officials said.