Stronger reporting of teacher misconduct

Senate File 345 just might be the most important bill you've never heard of to survive the state legislature's “funnel week.”

It's that bill that could stop potentially predatory teachers from hopping from school to school while avoiding investigations into alleged sexual misconduct involving students.

The problem came to my attention last March, when I learned that a former Benton Community sixth-grade teacher had been allowed to resign after complaints that he'd sent sexually themed notes to current and former students.

Even though that teacher's notes read like the grooming behavior of a child predator, school officials never reported the incidents to law enforcement.

Former Benton Community School Board members told me it was only after years of fighting that they were able to persuade the district's superintendent to notify state licensers about the former teacher's troublesome and inappropriate behavior. Shortly after he did file that report, the teacher voluntarily gave up his license to teach.

But the most shocking part of all was that the district's behavior was completely legal - the way it stands now, Iowa law requires schools to report only a limited number of criminal offenses to the Board of Educational Examiners.

SF 345 would change that and make a handful of other improvements that will help keep our kids safe in school.

But with all the bluster about a handful of other bills, it's gone largely unnoticed - even by me.

It was former Benton Community School Board member Deb Drahos who brought it to my attention - she's been pushing state legislators to close these legal loopholes for more than a year. She called the bill, introduced by Sen. Bob Dvorsky (D-Coralville), “a good start.”

Dvorsky's bill strengthens protections for whistle-blowers and requires annual ethics training for school staff. It requires administrators to report founded incidents of abuse and gives state officials the authority to deny or revoke the license of any administrator who fails to do so.

The bill requires schools to report investigations of alleged abuse involving students even if the employee resigns before the investigation is complete - doing away with hush-hush resignation deals that allow troublesome teachers to take their questionable behaviors to a new town, a new school.

“If they have something on their record, it needs to go with them,” Dvorsky told me Friday.

As any parent will tell you - that's just common sense. Now, let's hope the law catches up.

¦ Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net