Interesting Bill on Teacher Decertification in Washington State

There is a bill in the Washington State Legislature that would make it easier for schools to decertify teachers for various crimes, mostly related to child abuse. I read the bill and it is pretty standard stuff. So standard, in fact, that the Washington NEA associate is backing the bill. So, why did I put it on the Edjurist ... well, I just found this an odd statement in the Seattle Times Article:

Jarvis [Superintendent of Tacoma Schools] would like to see school districts required to report
problems with teachers, even if the problem is a "boundary invasion"
that likely would not get the teacher in legal trouble. He also wants
the state to allow school superintendents to file professional-practice
complaints against employees in other districts.

The bill would address these issues as well as broaden the list of
crimes for which a conviction can result in automatic firing and loss
of credentials.

So I investigated a little. Here is the section of the Bill that, I guess, would give them authority to report all such "boundary invasions" (only underlined part is new - I added the bold).

  9  Sec. 5. RCW 28A.410.090 and 2005 c 461 s 2 are each amended to
10  read as follows:
11  (1)(a) Any certificate or permit authorized under the provisions of
12  this chapter, chapter 28A.405 RCW, or rules promulgated thereunder may
13  be revoked or suspended by the authority authorized to grant the same
14  based upon a criminal records report authorized by law, or upon the
15  complaint of any school district superintendent, educational service
16  district superintendent, or private school administrator for
17  immorality, violation of written contract, unprofessional conduct,
18  intemperance, or crime against the law of the state. School district
19  superintendents, educational service district superintendents, or
20  private school administrators may file a complaint concerning any
21  certificated employee of a school district, educational service
22  district, or private school and this filing authority is not limited to
23  employees of the complaining superintendent or administrator.

Boundary invasions, of course, means something different to me than "immorality, unprofessional conduct, or intemperance." I certainly understand the idea the superintendent is referring to and I am not against calling teachers out when they cross the line, but it seems to me that boundary invasions can be interpreted pretty broadly (so broadly that if this actually was part of the bill I really would be shocked to see the WEA back it). In fact, the superintendent in his quote even specifically says he interprets this bill as giving him the authority to report incidents that would not have legal implications (something beyond immorality, unprofessional conduct, or intemperance, I assume). In fact, it appears to me that superintendents have no additional authority to report teacher boundary invasions under this new bill - which is pretty much directly contrary to what the article says. Luckily, the term "boundary invasions" was not included in the law and will not be considered by judges in hearings after teachers are fired (although that is not to say ill-informed superintendents might not mess with a teacher's career before it gets to court), but this is a good lesson on 1) how school leaders interpret legislation and 2) how the media chooses to report such interpretations as fact, even when such a simple task as reading the bill would have told them otherwise.

Comments

[Geoff Brown]

Yes, management of teachers is certainly a tricky area. Let's not forget that teachers, as mandated reporters, are required to report any "reasonable suspicion" of child abuse. Yet most teachers are woefully unprepared to talk to a student who's being abused. A new online role-playing">http://www.hownottotalk.com/abuse">role-playing course lets teachers rehearse this conversation with a possible child abuse victim. There's a free version (120+ pages) and a CEU-credit version. Let's hope that teachers can use this and other resources to become more effective at detecting and reporting child abuse.