By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer , LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/zxWjnS
3/06/2012 10:30:36 PM PST :: Two San Fernando Valley school board members are calling for aggressive action in creating a comprehensive tracking and notification system in misconduct cases and crafting tougher laws for disciplining offenders.
During next Tuesday's school board meeting, members Tamar Galatzan and Nury Martinez plan to introduce a motion giving Superintendent John Deasy a month to devise an action plan for pursuing changes to the state Education Code.
A separate resolution by Martinez and board President Monica Garcia would allow Deasy 60 days to return with a slate of improvements, including a process for notifying parents if a campus employee is temporarily reassigned, suspended, arrested or fired for misconduct.
That resolution also calls for reviewing procedures for handling complaints of misconduct or sexual or physical abuse creating a database for tracking the cases. That would require a change in labor contracts so that allegations of abuse - even unfounded ones - are preserved indefinitely in personnel files.
Martinez and Garcia also propose empowering the superintendent to immediately suspend or terminate an employee suspected of misconduct without waiting for approval from the board.
The Martinez-Garcia resolution affirms provisions included in a 2008 resolution authored by Galatzan that called for ensuring that sexual abuse of students is dealt with promptly and effectively.
Although that resolution was approved nearly four years ago, no uniform guidelines or procedures were adopted for handling such cases.
The new resolution by Galatzan and Martinez seeks to create an expedited system for terminating teachers for unprofessional, immoral or criminal conduct - a process that currently can take upwards of a year. They also want to change regulations so that teachers dismissed by the school board would not be paid while their termination moves through administrative appeals.
Finally, they want to change state law to prohibit any public employee convicted of sex abuse to lose their pension and retirement benefits, such as lifetime health insurance. The pension funds would be redirected to the district to pay for legal costs, with the surplus donated to charity.
The resolutions are expected to be introduced on Tuesday, and to receive final approval during a board meeting in April.
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