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Hammertime · #1 03-18-2007, 08:07 AM

Of teachers punished, more than half can return to classrooms

Matthew Herman has a problem. But it isn't finding a job.

For three years at South Broward High, the teacher subjected teen girls to his sexual aggression, state records show.

One girl said he tried to kiss her belly button. Two said he invited them home for sex. One later claimed he cornered her in a supply room, unbuckled his pants and asked her to "touch it, kiss it, or at least look at it."

The girls put up with it at first.

But they unleashed accusations after a student came forward with an especially troubling story -- that Herman had dropped his pants when they were alone.

In all, state Department of Education officials investigated 20 allegations described by a half-dozen girls. Records show they believed every one.
Their decision?

Send Herman back to school.

Herman's story is not unusual.

The Herald-Tribune spent two years investigating how school districts and the state Department of Education handle teachers who sexually harass and abuse or physically attack students.

It found that Florida's system to protect students malfunctions at every level, from schools to school districts to the highest levels of government in Tallahassee.

Even when state regulators believe teachers engage in the worst kind of behavior, they send them back to the classroom with no guarantee they will be monitored.

Often, even principals, including Herman's, have no idea their teacher has been punished for abuse.

Education officials at every level do not know how many teachers have been investigated for sexual abuse or how many they have sent back to classrooms.

To find out, the Herald-Tribune reviewed the results of more than 14,000 teacher investigations going back as far as 1997.

The analysis -- the first of its kind -- shows that more than 300 teachers have been punished in recent years for sexual misconduct -- molesting students, seducing them, having them pose nude or lavishing them with unwanted attention. Nearly 450 more physically attacked or verbally terrorized their students.

More than half of those teachers kept their license to teach. At least 150 teach in a Florida classroom today.
The actual number of questionable teachers in Florida schools is likely much larger because more than 70 percent of cases reported to the state are dismissed after a review by investigators who have little or no formal training.

Of the cases that don't get dropped, state officials close 9 in 10 with settlement deals that allow teachers to avoid admitting guilt. Those agreements keep cases moving through the system, and also result in lighter penalties.
The Herald-Tribune obtained records that show investigators found probable cause that:

Tara Wright had sex with two teenage boys when she taught English at Wymore Secondary School in Orange County. She now teaches second-graders in Hernando County.

Over two years, Fleeta Harris sent a teenage boy in her Alachua County English class personal letters and poems, including one that began, "How do I love you, let me count the ways ... " Harris is teaching at Lake Weir Middle School in Marion County.

Lawrence Brown was arrested on charges he raped a 15-year-old mentally handicapped girl in 1997. Prosecutors dropped the charges and allowed Brown to enter a pretrial intervention program. The state granted him a license to teach seven years later, and he teaches at Sneads High School in Jackson County.

Like Herman, all three teachers signed settlement agreements that kept them in school.

In a recent interview, Herman, now teaching at Everglades High School, denied the allegations against him. When state officials offered him a deal, he gladly took it, he said.

"They made an offer and said 'we'll get you back in the classroom,'" Herman said. "What could I say? That's what I wanted to do."

The system is so flawed that just deciphering what constitutes teacher misconduct is difficult.

Lawmakers and state education officials use vague definitions, such as "moral turpitude" and "gross immorality," to describe what conduct is banned. Interpretations vary from district to district and even from principal to principal in the same county.

While principals often are left to decide what specific acts are banned, union contracts, judicial rulings and attorneys ensure a teacher's rights are protected.

The Department of Education offers little help. It has an office of 12 investigators whose sole job is to gather enough evidence to punish bad teachers. But most came to their job with no experience conducting investigations and the state has not required them to attend formal training.

Meanwhile, the government officials responsible for protecting schoolchildren say they are powerless to fix the problems.

Instead, they point fingers.

"The Department (of Education) is not leaving people in classrooms," said Pam Stewart, who, as deputy chancellor for educator quality, oversees the division that investigates teachers. "Districts are leaving people in classrooms. That's an important distinction with regard to what the process is."

James Notter, Broward County's interim superintendent, rejected that idea. He said school districts can't take a hard-line approach for a teacher like Herman if the state lets him keep his teaching certificate.

"Why didn't the state take his damn license away?" Notter asked. "If somebody comes to us with a valid license, it's difficult in today's world to turn that person away. As the employer, if the license isn't revoked, the individual has the right to teach."

Light punishment

Tara Wright's story is a lesson in how things go wrong.

Newly minted as a teacher from Florida State University, she took her first job in 1996 working the education world's graveyard shift -- as a teacher at a second-chance school.

Wright, formerly Tara Charuk, settled in quickly at the now-defunct Wymore Secondary School in Eatonville, north of Orlando, taking over the cheerleading squad and forging close relationships with her students.

It was those relationships, particularly her closeness to male basketball players, that prompted the first suspicions, according to Orange County school district investigative documents.

Her principal and several teachers warned her to stop driving students home after school. It didn't look good, they said.

But rumors about her meetings off-campus with boys continued. Later that school year, a boy told another teacher he had sex with Wright.

The principal and school district investigators did their job.

They took a statement from at least one boy who said he had sex with Wright. One father told Orange County school district investigators that Wright had slept with all three of his sons.

Wright lost her job and district administrators forwarded the case to the Department of Education.

It could have ended her career.

Whole story: http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070318/NEWS/703180736/0/NEWS08

dlssmith · #2 03-18-2007, 09:08 AM

The problem is that there are almost no consequences for the people that hire teachers, if they turn out to be bad, or perverts or whatever. The principal will simply get a job at another school system, or be reassigned in a large district. There, problem solved.

If you could actually fire administrators for making bad decisions, or not doing a proper background check, or whatever, then a lot of this would stop.