Any reasonable person expects school leaders to view keeping kids safe as basic to their mission. That’s why it’s confounding to see all the ways that teachers who’ve breached professional boundaries can slip by, undetected.
Even when allegations of misconduct involve the possibility of sex crimes against minors, school district superintendents are not required to report those concerns to the state education department until they’ve done substantial investigation or decided to dismiss a teacher. And that often takes years.
Most often, superintendents act on their concerns far earlier, seeking guidance from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction about whether to make an official report.
But even then, educators can evade public scrutiny by surrendering their licenses and quietly resigning.
It’s an oddly contradictory position for Washington, which was once seen as a pioneer in this space. In 2004, the Legislature made it illegal for separation agreements with teachers to hide information about misconduct. Yet, if a teacher voluntarily gives up their license, those records are shielded from public view.
That happened in several recent cases unearthed by Investigate West, where teachers in the Mercer Island and Vancouver school districts were suspected for years of inappropriate sexual contact with students, yet remained on the job. After accusations continued to accumulate, the teachers, all of them male, were allowed to surrender their licenses and step away without findings posted or criminal charges filed.
Theoretically, they could move on to new teaching jobs in other states, and at least one of them did. It’s called “passing the trash,” according to the news outlet’s damning exposé.
Reporter Moe K. Clark surveyed Washington’s registry of Disciplinary Action Notices and found that 157 teachers, or almost 45% of the 349 added to the list since 2015, voluntarily surrendered their licenses, shielding their files — and the misconduct detailed within them — from public view. That includes 11 teachers from Seattle Public Schools.
The Washington Education Association has no position on the question of providing the public greater access to educators’ files, a spokeswoman said, though any adjustment would require action from lawmakers.
With the current legislative session winding down, it’s unlikely we’ll see any such movement this year. But Legislators, on your to-do list for 2027: Take a hard look at the mixed signals Washington is sending on professional misconduct in schools and who benefits from that.
Hint: It’s not the students.
