More than 1,600 teaching licenses were revoked because of sexual-misconduct accusations from 2001 to 2005, but none came from the District, according to an Associated Press investigation.
D.C. officials did not revoke the certification of a single teacher during that time, no matter how serious the crime.
For example, Brandon C. Jones, a former gym teacher at Backus Middle School, was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old student and entered an Alford plea in 2004 to a third-degree sexual offense for arranging an encounter with her at a Laurel hotel.
Although treated the same as a guilty plea, an Alford plea is an acknowledgment that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict, but not an admission of guilt.
Despite the plea, the D.C. Office of Academic Credentials and Standards never formally removed Jones from the rolls of those licensed to teach in the city. As a result, his name was never added to a national database of teachers whose certification has been revoked.
Across the country, sexual-misconduct accusations led states to take action against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005, the investigation found. That figure includes licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered.
The Associated Press sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states and the District over the five years.
D.C. education officials provided a list of just four names. Three cases were people whose initial application had been denied because of criminal records. The fourth was the case of a male teacher not having his certificate renewed because of criminal convictions.
The request from the District also resulted in no records of a teacher sexually abusing a student, despite the national investigation finding at least 1,467 such cases.
“We don’t do a whole lot of revoking here,” said Ken Bungert, director of the credential office. “I wouldn’t make the assumption that there’s not a lot of incidents here.”
Mr. Bungert said the system needs to be completely revamped to make it easier to track licensed teachers who get into trouble. He also wants more authority to revoke certification. D.C. regulations now allow revocation only in the event of a criminal conviction or guilty plea for a limited number of crimes, or if a teacher fails to report child abuse or commits fraud in obtaining the license.
“Certification was always just sort of sitting there,” said Mary Levy, director of the Public Education Reform Project for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
The District has hired hundreds of teachers without certification to fill vacancies, and Miss Levy said the current licensing process is not effective in sorting out qualified teachers from unqualified ones.
The D.C. certification process also has limited the ability to address cases of outright misconduct. The school system is not required to inform certification officials if a licensed teacher has been dismissed for misconduct, despite the certification office’s being down the hall from the District’s human resources department. In addition, the certification office has little staff to investigate misconduct allegations.
Some states have more latitude to respond to accusations, conducting internal deliberations or hearings to determine whether a license should be revoked.
Mr. Bungert said that makes more sense. “Is it the action or is the conviction?” he asked “The question for us is fitness to teach … We should not necessarily depend on the justice system itself.”
Criminal prosecutions often fall apart for reasons other than a suspect’s innocence. One example is when victims do not want to testify.
Wayne S. Promisel, a retired detective in the Fairfax County Police Department’s child services unit, said there needs to be a system for sharing information beyond what a criminal-background check reveals, which would help ensure that teachers who commit misconduct once don’t get the opportunity to do it again.
Mr. Bungert’s office is using part of a $3 million federal grant to come up with a proposal for a new system that will allow his office to take action on cases separately from the justice system, while still preserving due process safeguards.
In October, the certification office was transferred from the school system’s control to the separate Office of the State Superintendent of Education. Mr. Bungert hopes the change will help focus resources and attention on certification issues.
The case of Jones, the gym teacher, shows some of the problems with the D.C. certification system.
At the time of the incidents, in April 2004, Jones was teaching without valid certification. Mr. Bungert said his license expired in January 2004, and there is no record of a renewal application.
Even if Mr. Bungert’s office learned about Jones’ case, D.C. law has no provision for formally revoking an expired license. That’s something some states can do and something Mr. Bungert hopes a revamped system will allow him to do.
Despite the lack of action by certification officials, Jones most likely will not teach again in a public school because of background checks that are routinely conducted when someone applies for a teaching job. Not only does he now have a criminal record, but he also is a registered sex offender.
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