Teacher dismissal bill moves on
Republican effort to expand it is defeated
It will be easier and quicker to fire teachers in the most egregious misconduct cases, under a bill that the Senate passed Tuesday 33-4.
SB 1530, a response to a series of shocking abuse cases in Los Angeles Unified, would allow districts to suspend with pay teachers accused of sex, violence, or drug charges involving children and then speed up the process leading to a dismissal. A formal appeals process before the three-member Commission on Professional Competence would be replaced by an administrative law judge who’d issue a strictly advisory opinion to the local school board, which would have the final say.
The bill, authored by Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat from Los Angeles, will lead to a significant change in the legal process for a narrow range of misconduct cases. It will also allow districts to file dismissal charges during the summer – a quirk in the law favoring teachers – and will allow evidence more than four years old to be considered in dismissal cases. (Clarification: The bill applies not just to teachers but to all certificated personnel, including administrators.)
Had the bill already been a law, Los Angeles Unified could have handled Mark Berndt, 61, differently. He’s the teacher at Miramonte Elementary who’s been charged with 23 counts of lewd acts against children ages 7 to 10. Rather than go through an expensive and time-consuming appeals process, the district paid Berndt $40,000, including legal fees, to get him to drop the appeal of his firing.
The district had investigated complaints about Berndt dating back two decades but failed to substantiate them. Information about the complaints wasn’t in his file, because a clause in the district’s contract with United Teachers Los Angeles required that misconduct allegations that did not lead to action be expunged from a teacher’s file after four years.
In passing Padilla’s bill, the Senate beat back amendments proposed by Senator Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) that would have extended the provisions in Padilla’s bill to a broader range of misconduct cases. Huff pointed to cases involving teachers who locked a student in a closet and made ethnic slurs and fun of a handicapped child, which, he told senators, would not have been covered by the Padilla bill. Huff accused Democrats who closed ranks behind Padilla’s bill of choosing “to support union representatives at the expense of our children and the honorable teachers serving them.”
Earlier this month, the Senate Education Committee defeated Huff’s own bill, SB 1059, on teacher dismissal, which included the amendments that he introduced on Tuesday, as well as shortened the appeals process and gave school boards the final say for dismissing teachers for unsatisfactory performance – a sweeping change. Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy and a representative of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa testified for the bill, saying the current dismissal process can take years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The California Teachers Assn. and the California Federation of Teachers had opposed both bills, saying they eroded due process protections against false and unproven accusations.
Padilla said that teachers will retain the right to a hearing with witnesses and the right to appeal a decision to Superior Court.
I wonder how the teachers themselves feel about this? I understand that CTA and CFT opposed the bill but is that really indicative of how the teachers in the actual classrooms feel? I went to the same middle school where my father was a teacher for 36 years and I cannot imagine that any teacher with children of their own, would be opposed to a bill that removes teachers who actually harmed students. The opposition to this bill smacks of CTA and that is truly unfortunate. It does not benefit anyone to keep employing a harmful teacher for the sake of a “win” on the union’s scoreboard.
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I reject the cynical view that the union takes its positions for the sake of a “win” on its scoreboard. Teachers’ unions want due process for their members, not to “keep employing a harmful teacher.”
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“…would allow districts to suspend with pay teachers accused of sex, violence, or drug charges.”
I read the bill and amendments. I’m pretty sure you meant “without pay,” no?
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That’s a critical wording difference. Suspending with pay seems like a better option. That compromise would protect children and teachers. Speeding up the removal process is good enough to protect districts financially.
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From Roque Burio Jr., the lemon who can dance and can also sing. Here is my song for those who despise teachers alleged to have committed misconducts: The Law protects everyone including both the innocent and the accused. It is mandatory that the Law must protect the would be victim before the crime, and the same law must also protect the rights of the alleged accused after the crime. Hence the LAUSD Weapon of Mass Dismissal of Innocent Teachers AKA SB 1530 had to be defeated by its authors for it turns out to be illegal and unconstitutional. He, he, he, and hah, hah, had why not ask the Democratic Party members? Down with the Paper Monster LAUSD. Long live teachers, students and parents. Long live taxpayers.
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From Roque Burio Jr. Here is another song on the delay of teacher dismissal caused by the Paper monster LAUSD. Oh, come on. The law on crimes is easily and speedily enforced. Criminal justice system is accurate and fast in California. However the LAUSD will not report to the District Attorney the commission of crimes for it likes to use these crimes of teachers as bargains for obtaining additional funding and for paying its favorite private lawyers pursuing more an administrative case instead of criminal one.
If a teacher commits misconduct which could be crime then let the Criminal Justice System takes over, and if the teacher is guilty, he is convicted in less than a month and he can therefore immediately be dismissed from teaching. LAUSD causes the delay for some ulterior reasons or in short for money.
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From Roque Burio Jr., the lemon who can dance but can also sing, here is my song entitled LAUSD ominous song for Mr. Deasy, Holmquist, and Fletcher: Hooray, hooray, hooray the bad rumors are spreading like the Waldman fires of teachers’ misconducts, that LAUSD is fallen as in the writings on the wall, the State is taking over this dismayingly financially and academically and morally failing school district, only skeletal force will remain hence all fat men and fleshy women are dismissed and only thin cute men and slender petite women will remain. He, he, he, and more he, he, he. It is true folks believe me, wait a little time soon. Goodbye in advance Paper Monster LAUSD, goodbye Reign of Terror.
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Here is my song for Mr. Deasy, David Holmquist, and Warren Fletcher: entitled dizziness in protecting students: He, he, he and more he, he, students are not and cannot be protected from the crimes that have already happened.
The only people to be blamed for failure to protect students are those bad managers and bad administrators who were either sleeping or sitting in their offices and seldom visited the campus and classrooms of all teachers every day.
They usually visit vigilantly their targeted teachers and forget others, especially their favorite ones. Therefore, Mr. Deasy please require your administrators to keep daily and hourly log books of their activities in the schools and the classrooms that they visit and then you could surely protect the students from crimes being committed or about to be committed. He, he, he. Is it not that the right preventive approach is to make your administrators: principals, and vice principals vigilantly circulate in the schools? He, he, he, and hah, hah, hah. Very simple, Hah? Why try the hard way of being judicial and legislative in preventing crimes in the schools, heh? There are enough laws on crimes, why would you want to add more? He, he, he, he.
Prescription period is to protect the teachers accused of any false or true accusations—and beside it is too late to protect the victim students.
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From Roque Burio Jr., the lemon who can dance but can also sing. Here is my song entitled the tom tom war song for Tom Wildman the new spokes person of financially and academically failing LAUSD: Shut up and pack up and stop your tom tom war drum. Cease and desist from brandishing your tongue lashing weapon against us teachers, like that you have gathered more than 8,300 teachers misconducts. People want to see blood if those teachers are really guilty and they be exonerated if innocent. Revoke their license if they are guilty and reinstate them if they are innocent. Do it before the November election.
The US Peoples and taxpayers want worthy actions and not your weird mouthy publications.
Shut up and pack up and leave that noble privilege to educate our students to our city schools, smaller unified school districts, and private schools.
US peoples and taxpayers cannot be fooled anymore with your tyrant trial by publicity to damage, destroy, dismiss, forced to resign, and to scapegoat us innocent teachers for your financial and academic failures.
It seems to me that he tax payers will deprive you of your planned huge 6 billion dollar operational budget for your fat pocket for your extravagant, wasteful, and unexplained expenses and doubtful programs.
Like your old borrowed quotation deprive the fish of water and it will just die. The tax payers will deprive an office of too much money and the corruptions in that office will just die down. He, he, he and more he, he, he.
Long live the US peoples, taxpayers, teachers, parents and students. Down with office corruptions. Down with LAUSD Reign of Terror against innocent teachers. Down with the tyrant mouthy paper monster LAUSD
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How would you feel if the law passed and LAUSD maliciously accused your dad of molestation. With this law LAUSD would dismiss him with no recourse, no evidence, no facts, just the lie they decided to use to dismiss an innocent teacher because they are too high on the pay scale. They wouldn’t have to use the STATE’S DUE PROCESS (which makes it very easy to fire anyone they want to just by saying IMMORAL CONDUCT) just the lie they fabricated. The teacher is fired without the chance to defend themselves. Real molestation charges are rare but that doesn’t mean that every teacher accused of the act is guilty. I know because I was accused of such an act FOR NO REASON!!!!!!!!! IT’S WRONG!!!!! THE LAW IS WRONG!!!!!
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