A bill pending final passage in the state House would establish tighter timelines for resolving administrative complaints against Kentucky school teachers and administrators.
Rep. Mike Clines (R-Alexandria) is the sponsor of House Bill 300, amended and passed on a 35-1 vote Wednesday in the Senate. The bill had initially cleared the House on a 78-13 vote on Feb. 14 after two hearings before the House Education committee where it had opposition from the Education Professional Standards Board.
The House is expected to vote on final passage of HB 300 either Thursday or when lawmakers return from the governor’s 10-day veto recess, set to end the week of April 7.
Clines described HB 300 as a “bill of rights for teachers” who he said sometimes wait years for the board to resolve complaints levied by students or others against certified teachers. The board has authority to revoke, suspend or take other disciplinary action against a teacher or administrator under current law, last amended in 2000.
The proposed timeline—which would require the board to address complaints in fewer than three to six months in many cases —would typically apply to common teacher-student interactions like taking away a student’s cell phone, breaking up a fight, or preventing a student from disrupting a classroom, said Clines. These situations, he said, put teachers today “in very compromising positions in this day and age.”
“No good deed goes unpunished. And now they are in a situation that took two minutes, and their career and livelihood might be in question,” Clines told the House Education Committee early this session.
Complaints involving child abuse, dependency and neglect allegations and criminal matters would be subject to deferral under the bill.
Besides setting periods for board action, the board would have to notify affected staff of proceedings and hold either an in-person or virtual meeting with the teacher or administrator facing a complaint. The teacher or administrator could request an expedited hearing if they so choose.
Dr. Randy Poe spoke in support of HB 300 in committee this session. The former Boone County School superintendent—now executive director of the NKY Education Council and an at-large member on the Kentucky Board of Education—said, “there are many times that I and others waited endlessly for the EPSB to make a decision in our final hearing process” in the local school system.
“You’ve got an overloaded system that takes months and sometimes years for a decision to be made on a case. In the meantime, teacher and administrator decisions are put on hold and the children suffer from not having a quality teacher in the classroom if there’s pending false accusations against them. This also puts teachers’ and administrators’ lives waiting in the balance,” Poe told the House Education Committee in January.
“When you have to wait two years for a decision it’s too long,” Poe said.
The board—which establishes and oversees K-12 education standards in Kentucky and issues, renews, suspends and revokes school personnel certification—is not in favor of HB 300.
Board attorney Cassie Trueblood told the Senate Education Committee before it approved the bill on March 14 that the board was created to set standards “that include taking action against the certificate holder when educator misconduct has occurred.” She applauded Clines for removing earlier provisions from HB 300 that would have made the bill retroactive, among other language, but said the board still has concerns with the bill.
Specific concerns cited by Trueblood are provisions that would allow the dismissal of complaints based on the board’s failure to meet prescribed timelines and the ability to request expedited timelines.
“The majority of the over 43,000 educators in the commonwealth are good and ethical teachers who will never have a case before the EPSB. Those who do should be ensured of a thorough review and investigation of all allegations before them,” said Trueblood. “Students and parents should be confident that a process exists to investigate all allegations and take action when warranted, not fear that allegations are dismissed based solely on timelines.”
After Senate passage on Wednesday, Clines issued a press statement on HB 300, calling it legislation to bring “simple transparency to the process and hold everyone accountable, which will benefit everyone involved.”
Parents, teachers, the board, state department of education, superintendents and other groups had input on HB 300, Clines said. He believes it will give those who need it ‘due process,” he said.
“It takes an indefinitely long period for educators to have complaints against them investigated and completed. A teacher described it as ‘it’s like a plane that circles and never lands and it’s a horrible place to be,'” Clines said in committee early in the session. “We’re simply warranting that our educators are treated as professionals when a complaint is filed against them.”
