Database a good start on sex-abuse teachers

Greater awareness recently of the scourge of the abuse of children by a handful of teachers has led to several changes in schools’ policies that have brought much of what had often been a “sweep it under the rug” era to an end.

ViewTribune's look into sexual misconduct in schools

The Tribune’s inquiry into the issue, results of which were published in a series Sunday and Monday, prompted public education officials to build a statewide database of convicted sex-offender teachers to which the public can gain access. It can only be hoped that this knowledge might prevent applicants for teaching positions with a history of sexual-related offenses from being hired.

In addition, as the Tribune’s Mike Sakal reported, today’s applicants for teaching positions have the last seven years of their backgrounds checked by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. In turn, state passes the application to the FBI for a national criminal background check. Of course, some teachers profiled in our series had offenses going back far longer than that. Such a check should be extended further into the past to look for other red flags.

But what about teachers who are not prosecuted, but are either allowed to resign or are terminated following accusations of sexual misconduct or findings by school authorities of such misconduct? While it is true that today more and more such allegations are turned over to law enforcement to investigate than once were, by allowing a teacher to resign or even to fire him or her without law enforcement involvement puts nothing of these matters into records to which either the public or another school district can gain access.

While one teacher taking sexual advantage of one child is one too many, campuses during school hours still are statistically the safest places children can possibly be. The Tribune investigation found that between 1998 and 2007, there were 38 teachers involved in sexual misconduct among 11 East Valley districts employing thousands of educators.

But the possibility that unprosecuted teachers who are fired or allowed to resign might offend again is too great to allow the rights of privacy — which under current Arizona law prevents school districts from disclosing why a teacher resigned or was fired — to keep such conduct a secret any longer. The Legislature should take up this issue and amend the exemption for teacher performance records from the Arizona Public Records Law.

This likely will not sit well with the teachers’ unions, but the issue here is the protection of children, which should take precedence.