FORT COLLINS, Colo.—The state hasn’t been fully complying with a law intended to alert school districts to teachers who have been arrested.
The law passed in 2008 requires the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to notify the state education department whenever a teacher is arrested. The department is then supposed to notify every school district and charter school in the state.
However, the Fort Collins Coloradoan found that the education department has only been forwarding information about felony arrests or arrests for sexual misconduct, child abuse or domestic violence partly due to lack of funds.
Jami Goetz, executive director of the department’s office of professional services and educator licensing, said the department has been “tossing or shredding” information about all other arrests. She said the department doesn’t always know where the arrested educator works and making sure they are passing the correct information on to the right school district is time-consuming.
“We haven’t been sending the arrests,” she said after a reporter read her the law. “It looks like we need to update our procedures.”
The department refused to release details about the alerts it has been issuing, saying they were confidential.
Poudre School District officials say they haven’t received any alerts even though two of its educators were arrested last year. A counselor was arrested and convicted of a sexual assault on multiple children and a physical education teacher who provided alcohol to two students pleaded guilty to felony contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Education department spokesman Mark Stevens said funding to implement the new law arrived a year late and officials decided to send out alerts for only the most serious crimes. He said the department has now hired several additional employees to help review records and send out alerts.
Former U.S. Rep Bob Shaffer, the chairman of the state education board, said he’s convinced the worst cases are being tracked.
Former state Rep. Gwyn Green said she proposed the law after becoming frustrated that the teachers and other licensed educators who got in trouble in one school districts were able to find jobs in other Colorado districts.
