The State Board of Education met on Wednesday, after the Arizona Department of Education discovered a chaotic teacher discipline system and a backlog of cases. The Department’s report showed that the State Board of Education has failed to protect students from unprofessional teachers.
Since shortly after taking office, Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas, whose office oversees the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), expressed concerns about the lack of appropriate supervision of the investigative unit by the State Board of Education (SBE). In response to her concerns, the SBE, under the leadership of Chair Greg Miller, has chosen to fight rather than function.
The SBE has forced an expensive legal battle amounting to a power grab. Although the SBE has claimed that statute gives it the authority over staff, including investigators, evidence shows that Douglas is correct in her assertion that the staff, who serve the SBE, do so under direction of ADE.
Miller, whose combative behavior has spurred a campaign to oust him from the SBE, has claimed that statute provides that the ADE is responsible for teacher certification unit and the SBE is responsible for the investigative unit. He asserted that the two units had been under the ADE until 1998. However, Douglas produced an email from 1998 in which it is clear that staff – not statute – divided the two units.
In the 1998 email, the SBE’s executive director at the time, who started in as an administrative assistant, made the decision to shift the investigative unit from under the supervision of the ADE’s Certification Unit to under the SBE’s supervision.
Douglas, the only state level elected official on the SBE, submitted a letter to her fellow SBE members on Wednesday. She wrote:
After a thorough review of the performance of the State Board of Education’s (SBE’s) investigative staff occasioned by the recent disputes between my office and the Board, I have concluded and continue to believe that this unpaid and part-time board is incapable, by virtue of its design, of properly supervising and assessing the performance of its staff. In fact, I believe it is in recognition of that fact that the Arizona Legislature requires the SBE staff to report to my office and the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), a legal requirement which the employees and this Board continue to flout.
Since at least 2009 investigators have not had adequate Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) or an appropriate audit system with checks and balances to ensure they are effectively performing their duties. In some instances, they have continued to not perform the duties necessary to ensure the safety of our children and those in other states. (See Enclosure 1.) The failure to adequately report those who have endangered children is not the result of any lack of remote access. It precedes the recent dispute by a minimum of six years.
Regardless of the quality of Board staff, the employees need to report on a day-to-day basis to someone with the knowledge and expertise needed to ensure compliance with laws in such a critical area. A board meeting 4 to 11 times per year on average, seeing only the top surface of how some staff appear at meetings, is not sufficient supervision. Our state’s laws foresaw this need and made it clear that SBE staff shall be ADE staff for the purpose of oversight. This was the case until 1998, when staff made an arbitrary decision to move the Investigative Unit under the supervision of the Board (See Enclosure 2), and now we see the consequences of that action.
I renew my continuing call for the staff to return to their assigned duty posts and begin working under ADE supervision so that ADE can ensure that children are protected once again. Surely, the Board can perceive that it is not in a position to monitor what is taking place daily with the operation of the investigations staff, or any staff.
I call on you, my fellow board members, to read this statement and the accompanying attachments and honestly evaluate if continuing this unlawful supervisory relationship is in the best interest of the safety of our children.
The attachments include one Capitol Times from 2009; State fails to note investigation of teacher, which reads in part:
The State Board of Education failed to indicate in a Chandler teacher’s record that she was under investigation after police caught her in a questionable situation in 2006 with an underage student.
The 48-year-old teacher, Tamara Hofmann, went on to be at the center of a stabbing April 10 that left one of her high school students dead and a former student charged with second-degree murder.
Vince Yanez, the board’s executive director, wrote in a statement Wednesday that the information about the 2006 incident was not entered into a teacher certification database.
“This error did not permit external users (school and charter schools) to view all of the available information; specifically that Ms. Hofmann was being investigated by the State Board,” Yanez wrote.
He sent the written statement in response to a phone call seeking comment.
The stabbing suspect, Sixto Balbuena, 20, was the student from the 2006 incident and he was Hofmann’s student at Marcos de Niza High School. He admitted to police that he was engaged to Hofmann and he fatally stabbed Samuel Valdivia, 18, when he walked in on Hofmann naked and Valdivia in his boxer shorts.
Douglas also produced the ADE/Certification Unit Educator Status Data Review. The Review is based in part on a damaging report from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (read below).
ADE/Certification Unit Educator Status Data Review Executive Summary
1. On November 16, 2015, Associate Superintendent Dr. Cecilia Johnson received a report from the Attorney General’s Office detailing evidence that 16 of the 48 educators (33%) disciplined by the State Board of Education (SBE) between January 2015 and October 2015, whose Certification files did not reflect the disciplinary action taken. Eight of the 48 educators (17%) were not reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse (NASDTEC is the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification and maintains for its member states a national database of disciplinary actions taken against an educator’s certification credentials). The Certification Unit was directed to add the appropriate discipline action to the educator’s file and adjusted the educator’s certificate(s) accordingly. The Certification Unit does not have the ability to report to NASDTEC so the investigative staff was notified to report the discipline. See Appendix A. Attorney General’s Spreadsheet
2. After review of the Attorney General’s data, the Certification Unit expanded the inquiry to include disciplinary actions imposed by the SBE between January 2014 and December 2014. The Certification Unit found 7 of the 22 disciplined educators (32%) had not been reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse.
3. After comparison of the data presented in item #1 from the Attorney General’s office with the data from item #2 as reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse, the Certification Unit expanded the inquiry to SBE discipline actions over the last five years (January 2010 through December 2014). In order to accomplish this task, names of disciplined educators were obtained from the SBE meeting minutes. The data file of disciplined educators was downloaded from the NASDTEC Clearinghouse and also compared against NASDTEC’s live data on their publicly accessible website. See Appendix B. ADE Certification Spreadsheet
4. Chief Investigator Charles Easaw met with Associate Superintendent Dr. Cecilia Johnson and the Certification Unit on November 19, 2015 and concurred with the errors as documented in the data from items #1, #2, and #3 above.
5. To ensure 100% accuracy regarding SBE action regarding the discipline of educators, the Certification Unit wrote draft Investigative Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) using the agency’s SOP template and the Certification Unit’s knowledge of disciplinary processes. The SOPs describe procedures for recording, reporting and verifying SBE disciplinary actions. Investigative Unit will update SOPs and create final drafts with the assistance of the Certification Unit. Use of these SOPs will ensure consistency and accuracy of discipline records. In addition, Associate Superintendent Dr. Cecilia Johnson required a set of checks-and-balances to be performed by the Chief Investigator. These checks-and-balances were added to each SOP including review of all public facing portals.
6. In addition to SOPs, the Certification Unit was directed to conduct refresher trainings with all investigators. The Chief Investigator agreed to the dates of the training during the November 19, 2015 meeting with Associate Superintendent Dr. Cecilia Johnson but did not attend the first training session. Three of the other six Investigative Unit staff members also did not attend the first required training on December 3, 2015.
7. Complaints filed against certificated educators from the public are emailed directly to the Investigative Unit Inbox. ADE does not have access to any of that information.
8. The Investigative Unit maintains a separate Microsoft Access database housed on their own server. ADE does not have access to this database. The Investigative Unit must analyze their data and create gap analysis reports and address issues to ensure 100% accuracy in reporting SBE disciplinary action of educators to both ADE certification database and the NASDTEC Clearinghouse.
• Of the 9 Denials approved by the SBE from Jan 2010 through October 2015, 3 (33%) had no recorded action in their educator file. 5 of those 9 (56%) educators have not been reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse as of December 8, 2015.
• Of the 65 Revocations, pursuant to A.R.S 15-550, approved by the SBE from Jan 2010 through October 2015, 4 (6%) had no recorded action in their educator file; 10 (15%) educators have not been reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse as of December 8, 2015; 4 (6%) educator certificates were not appropriately revoked.
• Of the 19 Revocations approved by the SBE from Jan 2010 through October 2015, 1(5%) had no recorded action in their educator file; 3 (16%) educators have not been reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse as of December 8, 2015; 2 (11%) educator certificates were not appropriately revoked.
• Of the 98 Surrenders approved by the SBE from Jan 2010 through October 2015, 5 (5%) had no recorded action in their educator file. 4 (4%) educators have not been reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse as of December 8, 2015; 5 (5%) educator certificates were not appropriately surrendered.
• Of the 33 Suspensions approved by the SBE from Jan 2010 through October 2015, 2 (6%) had no recorded action in their educator file. 8 (24%) educators have not been reported to the NASDTEC Clearinghouse as of December 8, 2015; 23 (70%) educator certificates were not appropriately suspended.
• ADE Summary: 230 educator disciplinary actions were approved by the SBE between January 2010 and October 2015. Of those 230, 15 (7%) had no recorded action in their educator file. Of those 230, 30 (13%) had no recorded action in the NASDTEC Clearinghouse. Of those 230, 34 (15%) educator certificates were not appropriately revoked, surrendered, or suspended. Seventy-nine of the 230 {34%) SBE approved educator disciplinary actions were not appropriately recorded in either the Certification database or the NASDTEC Clearinghouse.
• NASDTEC Summary: Of the 704 educators disciplined by SBE action between January 1996 and December 2015, 157 (22%) were not found in the NASDTEC Clearinghouse. Of those 157 educators, 41 (26%) are from January 2010 and October 2015.