By
The Associated Press
MESA, Ariz. - The number of teachers and administrators investigated for sexual misconduct went up from six in 1995 to 19 in 1999, while investigations of sexual misconduct and other offenses, such as theft and substance abuse, went up from 46 in 1995 to 135 in 2000, according to a report released yesterday to the Board of Education.
The report called the number of investigations that involve teachers who have touched children "startling and revolting," the East Valley Tribune reported.
The investigations department was established by the Board of Education in 1995 to catch teachers who previously committed crimes but then disappeared without losing their state teaching certificates. Before 1995, districts were not required to report teacher misconduct to the state.
"A number of cases were found where teachers have been passed on from district to district for a long time," said Vince Yanez, a state investigator who helped compile the report.
The report said the lack of a tracking system sometimes allowed teachers caught molesting students to quietly resign and move to another district.
Teachers should be held more accountable for their actions, and the state and districts should beef up the screening and training of new teachers, the report said.
Arizona has done background checks on teachers since 1990, but the state did not monitor the criminal records of teachers after they were hired, said Corinne Velasquez, executive director of the state Board of Education.
As a result of the investigation, the board has asked the state Legislature to include $100,000 in the budget this year to fund the department.
"I think we need to get back to the focus of education being about the kids and the protection of our children," Velasquez told the newspaper.
The investigations department is now following criminal activity by registering new teachers in the state monitoring system. The system notifies the state as soon as a teacher has been accused of a crime by a student, or arrested outside of school for any one of 71 crimes.
Almost all of the roughly 200,000 certified teachers in the state will be registered in the system by 2006, Yanez said.
Velasquez said a bill also would be proposed this year before the Legislature that would make it illegal for a district's personnel department to accept the resignation of a teacher suspected of immoral conduct until it is reported to the state.
