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Is there a growing number of wayward teachers? Or are more people coming forward these days to report concerns of classroom wrongdoing?
We’re not sure but state officials say teacher misconduct reports in the 2011-12 school year were double the average they received in each of the previous three terms.
And that’s very troubling.
The state Department of Education agrees and, according to PA Independent, is putting in place tougher standards for policing teachers and dealing with those accused of offenses.
Last year, 563 reports of teacher misconduct were filed. In 2008-11, the annual average was 250. Inappropriate behavior ran the gamut from helping students cheat, to teachers viewing pornography in classrooms or sending sexually explicit text messages or photos to students, to sexually abusing them.
Shane Crosby, an assistant attorney who handles these cases, told PA Independent that the state typically resolves about half of all new cases in the year they are opened.
“But with this increase in the caseload, when we receive 563 cases in one year, we’re not going to be able to do that,” he said.
Gov. Tom Corbett hopes to remedy that. In his proposed 2013-14 budget, the governor recommends adding $775,000 to the education department’s Office of Chief Counsel, expressly to address the increased caseload. The funding would add three staff members to the educator discipline division, and two staff members to the Professional Standards and Practices Commission, which hears the cases.
Crosby noted that many cases his office receives are “uncharged criminal misconduct.” That could be a case of a teacher accused of misconduct who is prosecuted due to lack of charges, evidence or case dismissal. Or, it could be a situation in which an educator has frequent flirtatious behavior with a student.
“That may not result in a criminal charge, but that is still very serious misconduct from the department’s perspective,” Crosby said.
It’s also very serious from the perspective or parents, and certainly from that of the many teachers and administrators who are, to their credit, patrolling their own ranks to weed out such behavior.
Seemingly, every week inappropriate, even illegal, teacher behavior surfaces in a state wire news report.
Our region hasn’t been exempt from similar troubling issues, either.
We trust teachers and school administrators with our most precious commodity, our children, and we expect all of them to be role models. While obviously that is expecting too much, the overwhelming number of educators we know conduct themselves in the highest standards and are truly concerned with the well-being of our youngsters.
When wrongdoing does occur, however, we expect those involved will be reported, both to the appropriate state offices and to our school communities, and that their cases will be expedited quickly and, if called for, harshly.
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