Vote Recommendation | Economic Freedom | Property Rights | Personal Responsibility | Limited Government | Individual Liberty |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Yes | Neutral | Neutral | Positive | Positive | Neutral |
Current law already prohibits improper relationships between students and employees of a primary or secondary school. SB 7 seeks to clarify the applicability of the current law, add new reporting requirements, and hold school administrators accountable.
This bill would require principals to notify their superintendent, and superintendents to the State Board of Education, if they knew or should have known about an employee’s past criminal record or misconduct as well as if that employee was terminated or resigned following an alleged incident of misconduct. If they assist a person in obtaining employment under these circumstances they could have their certificates revoked. An attempt to conceal this information would be punishable by either a Class A misdemeanor or a state jail felony. One other new provision would be the potential revocation of an individual's teaching certificate if they were placed on deferred adjudication community supervision for certain offenses.
SB 7 would also add new continuing education requirements for teachers covering appropriate relationships and communication with students and for principals on how to prevent, recognize, and report prohibited sexual conduct between educators and students.
Finally this bill would require school districts to adopt a written policy governing electronic communication between school employees and students and would keep all employee evaluations confidential except they may be used for disciplinary proceedings or in cases of alleged misconduct.