By Gloria Romero
A most unusual thing happened in the Legislature when Assembly Bill 375, authored by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-San Ramon, and supported by the California Teachers Association – the state’s most powerful monied special interest – recently was brought to an unexpected halt by the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Carol Liu, D-La Canada-Flintridge.
It’s rare in Sacramento for anyone to slam the brakes on the CTA. AB375 ostensibly was introduced to finally respond to the public clamor over the burdensome process school districts face in trying to fire teachers accused of egregious offenses against students. After defeating similar legislation the prior year, the CTA joined with Buchanan to push the significantly weaker AB375.
Not surprisingly, the bill flew through the Assembly, even though education reformers and school districts throughout California testified against it. Likewise, folks were braced to see it fly out of the Senate, knowing that what CTA wants, CTA gets.
Then the improbable happened: Sen. Liu, a former school teacher, put her foot on the brake, declaring her committee would attempt to fix problems some people saw in AB375.
Way to go!
While the Buchanan-CTA bill was pushed as simplifying and shortening a cumbersome, badly broken teacher dismissal process, it actually exacerbates the problem. AB375 mandates a fixed timeline of seven months for any discipline case to be concluded. That sounds nice on paper, but AB375 opponents testified to Liu’s committee, that the time limit becomes tantamount to a “get out of jail free card,” giving teachers facing firing every incentive to delay their case past seven months. Tucked into the CTA bill is a new higher standard that hearing officers would have to reach in order to allow any continuance in a case.
AB375 also severely limits pretrial legal discovery, forcing school districts to restart a case if any new evidence is uncovered after the initial filing. For example, if charges are brought against a teacher on behalf of one alleged victim, and then additional accusers step forward, bolstering the claim, the district would be precluded from using this evidence and would have to start over from scratch. The result: increased costs, wasted time and a greater likelihood the district would just give up, maybe even paying the offender to just leave employment.
AB375 even allows the clock to keep ticking on the seven-month deadline even when delays result from illegal activities and obstruction of justice by involved parties. Wow! Imagine if our legal system would automatically release accused rapists after seven months.
After a few such cases, and after spending millions of taxpayer dollars trying to defend kids, districts, understandably, could decide to just give up: They well could conclude that the law wasn’t written to protect kids.
AB375 grants even new safeguards allowing perpetrators who run out the clock to be reinstated in as little as 15 days. Ironically, California’s Megan’s Law bars offenders from living adjacent to a school or congregating near a park where there might be children, but the Buchanan-CTA bill potentially could result in putting a suspected offender right back in a classroom, perhaps alongside their alleged victims.
Welcome to justice, CTA-style.
The California Constitution explicitly states students have the inalienable right to safe public schools. Sen. Liu should be applauded for halting the charade of AB375. It’s now up to us to permanently stop it, and write our own ballot initiative that will put the safety of kids first.
Read the full post here.