News

Actions

Record keeping issue could endanger AZ students

Posted at 8:08 PM, Dec 09, 2015
and last updated 2015-12-09 22:08:17-05

After an emergency meaning the Arizona State Board of Education is taking steps to try and fix a records keeping problem that could endanger students.

Board members say 48 teachers they disciplined somehow had their disciplinary records wiped clean.

This means educators who got in trouble for everything from being drunk in class to molesting children could have ended up back in the classroom.

"I'm shocked and appalled that this has been allowed to continue all this time," Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas said. 

"That's shameful and it needs to be fixed and it will be fixed," board member Greg Miller said. 

How to fix the problem though has resulted in what both sides are calling a power struggle.

Douglas wants control of the investigators responsible for the disciplinary reports to be placed under her supervision within the department of education.

"People not being properly supervised and not dotting the i's and crossing the t's the way they should be is what led to this problem," Douglas said. 

Other board members though are hesitant with her idea. They want the investigators to remain under the supervision of the board.

"I think there is a need to keep the investigative unit separate," Miller said. 

At the meeting, the board decided to immediately fix the mistakes and start looking at the operating procedures that led to the mistakes in the first place.