Legislature 2004
Teacher conduct proposal may get diluted

By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter

	Jeanne Kohl-Welles
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Under the amendment proposed by the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), staff members such as janitors, secretaries and nonteaching coaches still would have to undergo full background checks. But all certificated employees would undergo less-thorough checks.

"I am very concerned about this amendment," said Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, who has studied the issue for several years. "I think it really guts much of what we're intending to do."

Meanwhile, new cases are coming to light that illustrate the depth of the problem in Washington.

One of the bills the House will consider today — which has already passed in the Senate — would require school districts to ask former employers whether a job applicant had a history of sexual misconduct. It also would prohibit districts from entering into settlement agreements to keep such charges secret.

Hearing today in Olympia The House Education Committee will consider three bills today relating to teacher sexual misconduct. The committee hearing will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the John L. O'Brien Building in Olympia. The bills, which already have passed the Senate, would: • Require school districts to get records of sexual-misconduct cases from former employers before hiring someone, and prohibit schools from entering into agreements that keep sexual-misconduct cases secret. (SB 5533) • Require the state to complete sexual-misconduct investigations within a year unless there is a simultaneous criminal investigation, and impose fines for failure to meet the deadline. The bill also would allow parents and community members to file complaints directly with the state; currently, only school districts may file such complaints. (SB 6171) • Require school employees to report suspected child abuse to police or the state Department of Social and Health Services, and require employees to be trained on mandatory reporting every three years. (SB 6220)

The OSPI amendment, which already has been incorporated into a sister bill passed by the House and sent to the Senate for consideration, would not require schools to ask a teacher's previous employers about sexual-misconduct complaints.

Instead, it would require only that hiring schools ask OSPI for any discipline history. That would effectively blind hiring districts to many sexual-misconduct cases that did not result in the suspension of a teacher's certificate, The Seattle Times found in an examination of public records.

Of all the teachers who were investigated by OSPI but who did not lose their teaching licenses, nearly three-quarters would be able to keep their school-district records hidden.

Greg Williamson, policy coordinator for OSPI, said Saturday that although he's not sure whether the revised bill opens any loopholes, "that was not our intent." The amendment came about, he said, because it would cut estimated implementation costs for school-district staffing time from $2.4 million to zero.

Those estimates, projected by House analysts, put OSPI staff costs at $524,000 over the next biennium. The Senate projected there would be no costs.

Williamson said OSPI officials will work to revise the language to fix any problems.

The spate of proposed sexual-misconduct legislation comes after a Seattle Times series, "Coaches Who Prey," which ran in December 2003 and found that schools often have allowed predatory teachers and coaches to bounce from one school district to another while keeping their histories secret.

The Times found 159 coaches who were disciplined or resigned because of sexual misconduct; yet, 98 of them continued working with children. Hundreds more teachers who don't coach have been investigated for sexual misconduct, although The Times did not include those cases in its series.

Kohl-Welles said the provision of her bill banning confidentiality agreements in sexual-misconduct cases would address a particularly insidious problem. The Seattle School District has reached several such agreements. For example:

• In 1995, a Sharples Alternative School student accused tutor Sione Hefa of going to her home at 3 a.m. and forcing her to have sex with him. "At one point, he held her neck with his arm so she couldn't get up," according to investigative notes. "She kept telling him she did not want to have sex with him."

When the district investigated, Hefa refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment rights. His Seattle Education Association representative denied the accusations.

The district's human-resources director later told Hefa in a letter: "The District investigation revealed that you went to the home of one of your female students at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 22, 1995, you were let inside, and that you forced her to have sex with you."

Records indicate the district also suspected Hefa may have victimized other girls. After negotiations, the district allowed Hefa to resign, promising in writing not to tell future employers about the allegations.

Hefa could not be reached for comment.

The Times got the records of Hefa and other teachers accused of sexual misconduct only after a lawsuit against the Seattle School District, which at first withheld the records, saying the teachers had not been disciplined.

Despite the confidentiality deal, The Times was entitled to the records because such arrangements are trumped by Washington's open-records law.

• NOVA High School teacher Charles Estin admitted taking a student into a school computer room in late 1998, touching her thigh and telling her about a dream in which he had lain next to her without his shirt, putting his arm around her.

According to records of the investigation, he told district officials he "crossed over the boundaries" of good judgment but that the student had misinterpreted his intentions. He had been the subject of two other investigations, including one in 1997 after a former student alleged he had sexually harassed her, but those complaints did not result in discipline.

The Seattle district allowed him to resign and promised not to tell potential employers.

Estin said what he did "wasn't a very serious charge" because the district offered to transfer him to another school. He still would have faced discipline, though, and chose to resign instead.

Such cases "reinforce what I have known has been occurring around the state," Kohl-Welles said, adding that only a small fraction of teachers commit sexual misconduct. "I find it intolerable that any school district would allow somebody who they know has been involved in sexual misconduct to go on to another school district and likely repeat this type of conduct."

	Mark Green

Mark Green, the Seattle district's attorney, said school districts enter into these agreements to avoid drawn-out legal battles with teachers unions and to ensure districts get rid of bad employees.

The agreements are used in cases that may be difficult to prove, Green said, such as when witnesses or victims are reluctant to testify. And while they've been used infrequently in the past, he said, they've become even less prevalent the past few years.

"Over time, districts have come to a collective understanding that for every employee we may be able to get out our door, another district might pick them up not knowing what they've done," Green said. "And we're probably running the risk of picking one up from another district."

That's exactly what happened with Luke Markishtum, another former Seattle employee.

According to two decades of complaints in his personnel file, he groped and kissed girls at American Indian Heritage Secondary, bought beer for athletes, had sex with his girlfriend on campus, and hugged his female students and had them sit on his lap. Yet he faced no punishment.

Finally, in 1995, a student said he grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her toward him so he could kiss her. An investigation revealed other troubling information: In 1981, he had been caught trying to help smuggle 6 tons of marijuana into the state. He made a deal to testify against the others and wasn't charged.

"There appears to be a pattern of inappropriate and unprofessional behavior with staff and students that spans 26 years," then-Human Resources Director Tom Weeks wrote.

But instead of firing Markishtum, the district paid him the remainder of that year's salary, plus an additional $69,000, and promised to keep his record secret from future employers.

Markishtum denies all of the allegations. He was hired by the North Kitsap School District, which wasn't told about his past. He wasn't accused of wrongdoing there.

Under Kohl-Welles' bill, North Kitsap would have learned about Markishtum's history.

However, if the OSPI amendment had been law, the district still wouldn't have known about Markishtum's Seattle complaints. That's because school districts hiring teachers would be required only to punch an applicant's name into an OSPI database of complaints.

In this case, although OSPI investigated Markishtum, his name wouldn't have popped up because the agency had dismissed all the charges against him; the reasons for that are unclear.

Schools are required to alert OSPI when they have reasonable cause to believe an employee has committed misconduct — although they often don't do so. Even when they have reported, OSPI often has failed to conduct proper investigations, ignoring such evidence as love letters and videotapes, and dismissing the cases.

Seattle Times staff reporter Christine Willmsen contributed to this report. Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company