AUDIT FINDS YEARS-LONG BACKLOG OF INVESTIGATIONS INTO ACCUSED TEACHERS + CRIMINAL TEACHERS ARE STILL IN THE CLASSROOM, SAYS AUDIT + State Auditor Fact Sheet

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing took years to begin investigations into a teacher accused of showing pornography to children and another one who allegedly kissed a student, according to a new audit.

By Jason Song, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/gGc1Yg

April 8, 2011 - Teachers who have been accused of showing pornography to children, kissing a student, or sexual harassment were not investigated in a timely manner by the state agency in charge of revoking education credentials, according to a state audit released Thursday.

The state Commission on Teacher Credentialing also had a backlog of nearly 12,600 cases in the summer of 2009, about three years' worth of cases, according to a report by the California state auditor. The commission also did not keep good track of data, some of which was entered by hand, and it was often slow to look into allegations.

Click to open full report in new window>

"These conditions appear to have resulted in delayed processing of alleged misconduct and potentially allowed educators of questionable character to retain a credential," wrote Elaine M. Howle, the state auditor, in a letter to the lawmakers.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said the audit revealed that changes must be made.

"The audit clearly shows the commission needs to overhaul its process and reevaluate its personnel," Steinberg's spokesman, Mark Hedlund, said in an e-mail.

The commission employs 32 full-time staffers, including six investigators, and is overseen by an appointed board. Last year, the board voted to revoke the credentials of 306 teachers and administrators.

But auditors found that commission employees often moved slowly and noted that it took more than two months to begin reviewing 11 of the 29 cases auditors looked at.

In one case, a teacher was allegedly seen kissing a student in 2007, but the commission did not contact the school district until 2009. The commission learned that another instructor allegedly showed middle school students pornography in 2008, but did not request police documents until 2010. By then, the vice principal who reported the incident had retired, and a student who saw the pornography did not recall the details, and others could not be found.

The teacher went to work at another school in the district, and the committee closed the case without taking any action. A commission manager "did not offer any explanations as to why the division did not investigate this case sooner," according to the audit.

The commission staffers must wait for local law enforcement and school districts to finish investigations before beginning theirs.

The audit recommended that the commission improve its database and provide more training to ensure information is properly collected and easy to retrieve and study whether it needs more employees to handle its workload. The commission also grants teacher credentials.

"We're taking the recommendations very seriously," said Marilyn Errett, a commission spokeswoman.

The commission has already made several changes, including entering arrest data electronically, Errett said.

 

Criminal Teachers Are Still in The Classroom, Says Audit

By Lauren Smiley,  San Francisco News/Snitch blog | http://bit.ly/fyxk6v

Thu., Apr. 7 2011 @ 5:58PM - The state body responsible for investigating teachers accused of crimes and misconduct might be letting teachers get away with prostitution, petty theft, or kissing students.

Likely the state won't get to reviewing this lady for awhile.>>

A new report released Thursday by the state auditor says that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing investigating division could be allowing school teachers to remain in the classroom despite the fact that they might have been convicted of a crime.

The division, known as the Division of Professional Practices, had a backlog of 12,600 unprocessed reports of arrests and prosecutions of credentialed instructors, or those applying for credentials, in the summer of 2009. This was thanks to a shortage of trained staff, inefficient processes, and no automated system for tracking the workload, the report found.

The report states: "The division's delays in investigating reported misconduct potentially allowed educators of questionable character to retain a credential. Some of the more extreme cases include allegations that teachers distributed obscene material to a student or demonstrated recurring misconduct such as prostitution and petty theft, kissed a student, and made inappropriate sexual comments to female students."

Here are some more findings that merit a pause:

• Delayed investigations: In the 29 cases reviewed by the auditor, the division took more than 80 days to even open a case against a credentialed teacher after it received a report of misconduct. One took nearly two years to open a case. Another took nearly three.

• Delayed credential revocations: Even when told by a court that the teacher was convicted of a crime that results in the mandatory revocation of his or her credential, the division is still slow in getting around to revoking it. In two of 23 like this cases, the division took 45 days and then six months, respectively, to revoke their licenses.

• Incomplete database: The auditor couldn't find more than half of 30 reports of arrest and prosecution they randomly selected to check in the division's database.

• Allegations of nepotism: Apparently, many employees among the Commission on Teacher Credentialing are family members. The auditor found that, without consistent hiring procedures, the commission was putting itself at risk of allegations of unfair employment practices.

  The commission is already reviewing the report, and agrees with many of the recommendations, wrote Anne Padilla, the commission spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

  The report itself notes that "the Commission agrees with most of the recommendations and emphasizes that it takes its role of enforcing professional discipline seriously while balancing the safety of California school children and the due process rights of educators," wrote Padilla. "We appreciate the review of our policies and practices and are already moving forward on implementing many of the recommendations."

  If you'd like to look up if a particular teacher near you has a record, you can do so on commission's web site.

  Just don't expect it to be too up-to-date.

  

  Date: April 7, 2011

  Report: 2010-119

  The California State Auditor released the following report today: Commission on Teacher Credentialing

Despite Delays in Discipline of Teacher Misconduct, the Division of Professional Practices Has Not Developed an Adequate Strategy or Implemented Processes That Will Safeguard Against Future Backlogs

BACKGROUND Receiving over 250,000 applications for teaching credentials each year, the 19-member Commission on Teacher Credentialing (commission) establishes high standards for the preparation and licensing of public school educators. The Division of Professional Practices (division) conducts investigations of misconduct on behalf of the Committee of Credentials (committee)—a commission appointed seven-member body. The committee meets monthly to review allegations of misconduct and, when appropriate, recommends that the commission discipline credential holders or applicants, including revoking or denying credentials when the committee determines holders or applicants are unfit for the duties authorized by the credential.

KEY FINDINGS During our audit of the commission’s educator discipline process, we noted the following:

• As of the summer of 2009, the division had accumulated a backlog of about 12,600 unprocessed reports of arrest and prosecution—nearly three times the number of educator misconduct reports the division typically processes each year. The backlog was a result of an insufficient number of trained staff, ineffective and inefficient processes, and a lack of an automated system for tracking the division’s workload.
• These conditions appear to have significantly delayed processing of alleged misconduct and potentially allowed educators of questionable character to retain a credential.
• In 11 of the 29 cases we reviewed, the division took more than 80 days to open a case after it received a report of misconduct, with one taking nearly two years to open and another taking nearly three years.
• The division does not always effectively track cases that potentially result in mandatory revocation of a credential—for two of the 23 such cases we reviewed the division took one and a half months and six months, respectively, to revoke the credentials after being notified by the court the holder was convicted of the crime charged.
• Because it relies on the prosecution of criminal charges rather than contemporaneously pursuing all available sources of information regarding its cases, when an individual is not convicted the division may not be able to get the information necessary to effectively investigate because some witnesses—students, teachers, and administrators—may no longer be accessible.
• The division has not effectively processed all the reports of arrest and prosecution that it receives—we could not locate in the commission’s database more than half of the 30 reports we randomly selected. Further, it processes reports it no longer needs because it does not always notify the appropriate entity that the reports are unneeded.
• To streamline the committee’s review of reports of misconduct, the commission allows division staff to use their discretion to decide which reports to forward to the committee for its review and which require no disciplinary action—a practice we believe constitutes an unlawful delegation of discretionary authority.
• The division lacks comprehensive written procedures for reviewing reported misconduct and the database it uses for tracking cases of reported misconduct does not always contain complete and accurate information.
• Familial relationships among commission employees may have a negative impact on employees’ perceptions and without a complete set of approved and consistently applied hiring procedures, the commission is vulnerable to allegations of unfair hiring and employment practices.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS We make numerous recommendations to the commission including that it develop and formalize comprehensive procedures for reviews of reported misconduct and for hiring and employment practices to ensure consistency. We also recommend that it provide training and oversight to ensure that case information in its database is complete, accurate, and consistent. Moreover, we provide specific recommendations for the commission to revisit its processes for overseeing investigations to adequately address the weaknesses in its processing of reports of misconduct and reduce the time elapsed to perform critical steps in the review process.