By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/GW6Afy
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy ordered principals to review personnel files at their campuses to look for evidence of potential wrongoing. (File photo by Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)
3/23/2012 09:50:43 PM PDT :: Based on information unearthed in a search of Los Angeles Unified's personnel files, the state teacher credentialing agency has opened investigations into 130 educators and the district has reported some past allegations of misconduct to law enforcement, officials said Friday.
The California Teacher Credentialing Commission has been flooded with misconduct reports in the month since LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy ordered principals at nearly 900 campuses to scour personnel files for evidence of possible wrongdoing.
Deasy said Friday the review had turned up "some cases that we believe warrant police investigation," and that "some" teachers had been removed from classrooms while authorities look into the allegations. He declined to reveal how many employees were being investigated or any details about the allegations.
Deasy ordered the review of the files as he dealt with the fallout from the arrest of Mark Berndt, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary.
Berndt has pleaded not guilty to committing lewd acts against 23 students, who authorities say were blindfolded and spoon-fed his semen. Parents said they'd complained about Berndt in the past, but his personnel file contained no allegations of misconduct.
The district fired Berndt in January 2011, but it waited more than a year -- in violation of state law -- to notify the credentialing agency of the alleged wrongdoing.
That prompted Deasy, who is in his first year as superintendent, to order his staff to refile four years' worth of misconduct reports with the state.
He also ordered the top-to-bottom review of school-site personnel files, with principals ordered to look for allegations of sexual misconduct, inappropriate behavior, violence or drug-related activity.
In addition to cases that fall within the CTC's statute of limitations, principals were also ordered to review every file as a way to flag longstanding issues that remain problematic today.
The task proved so arduous and time-consuming that the district recently decided that assistant principals could pitch in. The administrators also were given an extra two weeks, until April 30, to complete their search.
A spokeswoman said the state commission has reviewed 174 of the 250 reports filed by Los Angeles Unified since Feb. 22, and found that about 75 percent -- or 130 -- warrant further investigation. By comparison, the panel's Division of Professional Practices last year investigated 210 cases from districts around the entire state.
"The commission has been bracing themselves for the additional workload, and the board has made this their top priority," said Richard Zeiger, chief deputy to state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and his appointee to the commission.
Deasy said he didn't yet know whether the 130 cases included any that had been filed previously or whether these were all new allegations.
"I do not know how many are duplications. Did we send these earlier or did we not?" he said.
"What disturbs me is why these files were at a school site and not at the central administration building."
The CTC has the authority to suspend or revoke a teacher's credential for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior. According to state Education Code, it has up to four years from the date of the alleged misconduct to take action.
Under Los Angeles Unified's teacher contract, four years is also the length of time that unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct can be retained in a employee's personnel file. After that, it must be kept in a separate "expired" file.
Judith Perez, president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, said it has been "immensely challenging" to scour the records of generations of teachers, office staff, cafeteria and maintenance workers, substitute teachers and aides.
"The district has never had guidelines about what to put in a school-site file, and it did not train principals what to include," Perez said. "This is problematic because policies have changed.
"In terms of how to report suspected child abuse, for example, principals at one point were directed not to keep copies of reports. Then they were told to send them to the general counsel or to the (now-defunct) child abuse office."
Years ago, she said, principals were told to use their judgment in filing a report on physical abuse, so they may have filed paperwork only if there was visual evidence of an injury.
"Today," she said, "we file a report in every instance. It's a change in practice, based on what's going on."
In addition, Perez said, some principals have reported finding files in school attics and basements and in sheds at the edge of campus.
"Some schools are more than 100 years old. But the directive stated, go back to the beginning. Principals may not even know where all the files are stored.
"That's the concern -- about not doing it right," she said. "There's a high pressure, and principals fear that they'll miss something."
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•• smf’s 2¢: One wonders if one (or more) of those investigations is the superintendent’s ‘Failure to Report’?
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