Why I won't stop 'dragging out' Benton Community teacher scandal

There was a voice message on my office phone this morning from a reader wondering why I'm “badgering” Walter Drahozal, the former Benton Community teacher who quietly resigned from his post in 2006 after a school investigation revealed he'd been sending sexually themed notes to current and former students.

Sure, Drahozal showed poor judgment, the caller admitted, but she said she didn't understand why I was dragging it out in the news.

Although most readers have been shocked and outraged to learn that Benton Community School officials allowed Drahozal to keep his teaching license for years after showing him the door, I have heard from a couple people with similar questions. This happened a long time ago, they argue. Don't you have more important things to cover?

The short answer is no.

First, this issue is anything but in the past. Drahozal only surrendered his license this spring, after a few tireless people fought to have it brought before the state licensing board – which is what finally brought the situation to light.

Second, the Drahozal case is the perfect example of a dangerous practice in our public schools: allowing, in some cases encouraging, educators to quietly resign after internal investigations reveal sexual misconduct or other unethical behaviors.

Usually, we don't learn the real story when educators tender “immediate resignations” and slink off with their licenses intact. No one does – not even the state Board of Educational Examiners. There's no way of knowing how many problematic, potentially predatory, educators are passed in this way from district to district. What's more – it's perfectly legal.

Anyone who reads the e-mails Drahozal was sending to young girls he was supposed to be mentoring would agree that he doesn't belong in any Iowa classroom. But he remained a licensed educator for four years after these e-mails were discovered. That's a problem.

It's an even bigger problem that school officials and Iowa law allowed that to happen -- that Drahozal still would be licensed if it weren't for a handful of people who fought to report his behavior. And the fact that we have no way of knowing how many similar cases are out there – teachers whose licenses never were called into question – well, I can't think of a more important story to bring to your attention.

I like good news as much as anybody –look over my past columns and you'll see I go out of my way to find people who are making positive changes in our community.

But an important part of my job is bringing attention to the holes and gaps that allow bad actors to run rampant, to the problems that aren't being addressed by legislators and officials and community members. I take that charge seriously.

Our children deserve safe educational environments. Parents deserve to know when their child's safety may have been compromised. Schools deserve to know if the candidate they're interviewing has a history of questionable and unethical behavior at work. Taxpayers deserve an accountable, ethical public school system.

And you deserve a columnist that will go ahead and report the bad news when those groups aren't getting what they deserve. So count on me “dragging this out” until the system is changed to hold teachers accountable for unethical and dangerous behaviors – and hold equally accountable the school districts that enable those teachers by allowing them to leave town, fully licensed, to take up somewhere else.