REFORM URGED FOR TEACHER DISCIPLINE SYSTEM

Slow Process Can Hurt Both Teachers, Schools

Daniel Alcocer Jr. takes a seat in a folding chair and sets his
backpack on the floor.

Alcocer, a young man in a white shirt and tie, should be at the
Phoenix high school where he substitute-teaches.

Instead, he's sitting in a government building near Arizona's Capitol,
hoping an ethics committee will forgive a recent drug conviction and
grant him a teaching license.

Members of the Professional Practices Advisory Committee, all about 20
to 30 years his senior, listen as Alcocer tells his side of the story.

It's what these volunteers do every month when they review teachers
whose licenses are on the line and applicants who want a license to
teach.

It's the easy part of their job. The hard part comes later, when
committee members must weigh a person's unprofessional, immoral or
even criminal conduct against the safety of the schoolchildren the
person teaches or wants to teach. Their decision can end a teacher's
career. Or salvage it.

Each year, about 500 complaints are filed with the state Board of
Education against Arizona teachers. Complaints range from breaking an
employment contract to having sex with a student and are primarily
made by teachers, police or state investigators.

It's the job of the committee to handle the most serious of those
cases, typically about 75 a year. The rest are closed by state
investigators because they don't meet the standards of immoral or
unprofessional behavior, there's no evidence, or district discipline
is considered stiff enough.

In criminal cases, the committee deals only with discipline. But with
immoral or unprofessional cases, the committee is both the judge and
jury.

Although state laws and policies identify what constitutes criminal,
immoral and unprofessional behavior, few rules or guidelines exist to
help the committee determine consequences for such behavior.

Some say the system needs to be revamped to better address discipline
issues and move cases through more quickly. But opinions differ on
just how to do that.

. The state's school chief says a new board is needed. The Board of
Education oversees the ethics committee and has final say on
recommendations, approving most of them. But something as important as
sorting through teaching applicants and misbehaving teachers should be
done by an independent board that has the power to make final
decisions, said Tom Horne, state superintendent of public
instruction.

. Some committee members suggest the state hire more investigators to
help move cases along. At any time, there are about 400 complaints
waiting to be examined by four state investigators, said Vince Yanez,
executive director of the Board of Education. The serious cases are
immediately sent to the committee, Yanez noted.

. Attorney Bill Holder, who often defends teachers in front of the
ethics committee, says the state needs to seat an additional committee
to speed up the process. Some cases wait up to a year to be heard by
the committee. During that time, school districts can choose to either
suspend a teacher or allow them to keep teaching.

"All the time (teachers are) waiting for a hearing, they have this
cloud hanging over them," Holder said. On the other hand, some
teachers can remain in the classroom longer than they should.

"Their certification (license) remains in effect," he said. "Unless
the school district takes action, and it often does, they're free to
work as a teacher."

Doling out discipline

The state has relied on an ethics committee to handle discipline
issues for three decades.

The current committee is made up of four educators, a retired
Flagstaff police detective, an attorney and a school-board member, who
is also a real-estate agent.

From 2004 to 2007, the committee heard 258 cases of teachers and
teacher applicants accused of criminal, immoral or unprofessional
behavior. Out of that number, half were allowed into the classroom.
The rest either surrendered their license or had it taken away.

Involuntary revocation of a license is the committee's harshest
punishment and is typically saved for teachers who criminally abused
kids or who had sex with a student. Teachers can still lose their
license even if their sexual misconduct doesn't result in criminal
charges. For example, teachers who attempt to have sex with their
students or send them inappropriate sexual text messages also face
harsh punishment.

Some teachers are allowed to voluntarily surrender their teaching
license, a step below revocation.

Public charter schools are not permitted by law to hire teachers who
had their license revoked. But they can, in most cases, hire teachers
who voluntarily surrender their licenses.

For example, among those who opted to voluntarily surrender their
license was a school librarian who left a videotape in the school. It
was found by another teacher and showed him "engaging in sex acts upon
himself" in the school library, according to state Board of Education
investigators. Without a criminal conviction, he is eligible for a job
in a charter school.

There is no clear pattern to how the committee arrives at its
decisions. The only discipline rules that exist are in state laws and
deal with serious crimes.

Some convictions, like sex with a minor, eliminate teachers or
applicants immediately because they can no longer clear a
criminal-background check. Members decide other cases by weighing such
factors as how much time has passed since an arrest, conviction or
indiscretion and whether the person is remorseful.

They can deny applicants a license, put a disciplinary letter in their
file, suspend their license, accept a voluntary surrender or revoke
the license.

A former police officer was denied a license to teach after losing his
law-enforcement certification because he was sleeping on duty and
stated a dislike for minorities. The committee noted he "exhibited an
arrogant and supremacist attitude," minutes of the meeting showed.

The former officer applied three more times and appeared before the
committee. Finally, committee members agreed he was "a more mature
individual, showed professional and personal growth and took ownership
of what he did."

"That's what we should be all about, learning from mistakes we've made
and being able to go on," said Sheila Rogers, a Gilbert elementary
principal and committee member since 2000. "Sometimes I think people
who have made mistakes have a broader understanding of life."

Members also look at how long ago the misconduct occurred and whether
the individual has had time to complete a counseling program or serve
punishment.

"We had one individual, two or three years ago, who had been convicted
of manslaughter, served his time, and we could see no reason why he
couldn't be in the classroom," said committee member Byron Allen, the
retired police detective. "You can't hold things against people all
their lives."

As for Alcocer, time was not on his side. It's been less than a year
since his conviction and his sentence of three years of probation. He
was arrested in Texas after police found nearly 5 pounds of marijuana
inside the trunk of his car, according to police reports.

"I made an impulse decision because I saw a shortcut for paying for my
graduate school and possibly help my ill grandfather," Alcocer said.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend denying him a teaching
license. They invited him to try again, perhaps after his probation is
over and he has time to prove himself worthy of teaching children.

Pushing for reform

Arizona's ethics committee is unlike other professional
boards.

In most states, ethics boards are independent, set their own rules,
and are made up of people in the profession.

For nearly a decade, the state's teachers union, the Arizona Education
Association, has periodically introduced legislation to create a more
professional, independent board. But it has failed to gain enough support.

This year, the association again introduced legislation for a new
board.

Without support from the state schools chief, the legislation once
again failed.

Horne agrees a new board is needed.

"The state Board (of Education) is a policymaking board, and it's not
well constituted to deal with these issues," he said. "You need a
board that is formed and functions as a quasi-judicial board, not a
policymaking board."

But he said the association's proposal goes too far and strips the
Board of Education of too much power. The association wants a new
board to also take over teacher licensing, licensing standards and
rules of conduct, which are controlled by the state Board of Education.

Early in his term, Horne introduced legislation to create a board.
Like the teachers union's proposal, it too failed.

John Wright, president of the association, said a dedicated,
teacher-controlled board would speed the process and be tougher on
those who break the rules.

"People who are violating either a law or a policy are not helping out
the rest of us who want to maintain the integrity and credibility of
the profession," Wright said.

Waiting to reapply

Alcocer returned to substitute-teaching at the Phoenix high-school
campus and was still there nearly a month after his hearing until an
inquiry by The Arizona Republic. Until then, no one at the district
office was aware of his conviction or his hearing before the
committee. When the district learned of the conviction, a district
spokesman said Alcocer was removed from the substitute list.

Had his arrest been in Arizona, it would have been flagged by a
Department of Public Safety system that notifies the state Board of
Education investigators, who then notify the teacher's school. The
state Board of Education investigators canceled Alcocer's
fingerprint-clearance card. That made his substitute-teaching license
invalid and makes him ineligible to teach in any public school.

Alcocer withdrew his teaching application before the Board of
Education could vote on the committee's recommendation.

If the board had voted to accept the recommendation to deny Alcocer a
license, he would have to wait five years to reapply.

Now, he can reapply sooner, perhaps after his probation is over.