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Interesting Bill on Teacher Decertification in Washington State

By Justin Bathon

There is a bill in the Washington State Legislature that would make it easier for schools to decertify teachers for various crimes, mostly related to child abuse. I read the bill and it is pretty standard stuff. So standard, in fact, that the Washington NEA associate is backing the bill. So, why did I put it on the Edjurist ... well, I just found this an odd statement in the Seattle Times Article:

Jarvis [Superintendent of Tacoma Schools] would like to see school districts required to report problems with teachers, even if the problem is a "boundary invasion" that likely would not get the teacher in legal trouble. He also wants the state to allow school superintendents to file professional-practice complaints against employees in other districts.

The bill would address these issues as well as broaden the list of crimes for which a conviction can result in automatic firing and loss of credentials.

So I investigated a little. Here is the section of the Bill that, I guess, would give them authority to report all such "boundary invasions" (only underlined part is new - I added the bold).

Boundary invasions, of course, means something different to me than "immorality, unprofessional conduct, or intemperance." I certainly understand the idea the superintendent is referring to and I am not against calling teachers out when they cross the line, but it seems to me that boundary invasions can be interpreted pretty broadly (so broadly that if this actually was part of the bill I really would be shocked to see the WEA back it). In fact, the superintendent in his quote even specifically says he interprets this bill as giving him the authority to report incidents that would not have legal implications (something beyond immorality, unprofessional conduct, or intemperance, I assume). In fact, it appears to me that superintendents have no additional authority to report teacher boundary invasions under this new bill - which is pretty much directly contrary to what the article says. Luckily, the term "boundary invasions" was not included in the law and will not be considered by judges in hearings after teachers are fired (although that is not to say ill-informed superintendents might not mess with a teacher's career before it gets to court), but this is a good lesson on 1) how school leaders interpret legislation and 2) how the media chooses to report such interpretations as fact, even when such a simple task as reading the bill would have told them otherwise.

Full post as published by Edjurist on February 26, 2008 (boomark / email).