House backs tougher penalties for teacher misdeeds
AUSTIN — As the number of teachers accused of engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with their students continues to rise in Texas, state lawmakers tentatively agreed to force guilty teachers to forfeit their pensions and hit administrators with jail time and hefty fines if they are convicted of covering up their employees’ misdeeds.
The bill, which the House passed on a voice vote Monday, comes as allegations of educators having inappropriate relationships with students reached what lawmakers have characterized are “epidemic levels” of more than one complaint filed per day this school year.
“Currently in Texas, educators convicted of felonies involving students received publicly funded pensions while in prison,” said Rep. Matt Rinaldi, an Irving Republican and lawyer who amended the bill to stop former teachers serving time for such crimes from receiving their pensions.
He recalled the case of Reyes Deleon, 61, a former San Antonio high school teacher serving a 15-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child. Deleon was two weeks shy of retirement in 2012 when he was accused of inappropriately touching a girl when she was 10 years old. He continued until she was 13. She then came forward after he asked her for a pair of her underwear and let her know he wanted to have sex with her when she was older.
Deleon receives more than $35,000 a year in pension benefits, according to Rinaldi,
“meaning that by the time he gets out of prison, he could have as much as a quarter million dollars in the bank.”
Senate Bill 7, assigned a low bill number as a reflection of its importance to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, focuses on school and district leaders who could cover up their teachers’ misdeeds by allowing teachers who engage in inappropriate relationships to quietly leave their school districts unreported to take jobs at another.
The legislation, sponsored by Houston Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt and Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, comes amid a steady uptick in the number of teachers and educators accused of engaging in sexual and romantic relationships with students, including a former Aldine Independent School District middle school teacher who she said she became pregnant by a 13-year-old student. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this year.
Increase in complaints
The Texas Education Agency has received 191 complaints of inappropriate teacher relations with students since September, a 65 percent increase from the same time in 2015. The number of complaints so far this school year have exceeded the entire 2014 fiscal year, which totaled 188 allegations.
It’s already illegal for teachers and school employees to have sexual contact with a student at their school, but the bill would extend that offense to educators who have relations with someone they know to be a student at any public or private school.
The bill would also, for the first time, require principals to report to their superintendent if they’ve fired someone for or discovered instances of inappropriate relations with a minor, or incidents of illegal drug possession, sale of drugs, illegally taking money or property from a school, altering their professional certificates for a raise or a promotion, or committing any criminal offense on state property.
Punishing administrators
Superintendents already are required to report revelations of criminal records involving those offenses to the State Board for Educator Certification. Under the proposed law, principals and superintendents that fail to report their teacher to upper management within seven business days would face a $500 to $10,000 fine and lose their certification when it is up for renewal.
Administrators found to have tried to cover up their employee’s misconduct would face a state jail felony, punishable by up to two years in jail.
The House opted to give a judge discretion to revoke all pension benefits or allow the spouse of the former teacher to collect part of the pension.
The bill now faces a third reading in the House before it can head back to the Senate, which already passed the bill unanimously in March. Bettencourt said he plans to accept tweaks made by the House and send the bill to the governor for his signature.