More public school teachers suspended under new transparency law

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(The Center Square) – More public school teachers were suspended this month after a new transparency law is in effect related to teacher misconduct. 

The Texas Education Agency’s State Board for Educator Certification Committee met this month to consider suspending 26 public school teachers; 26 suspensions were approved. 

The meeting minutes were later updated to show that 20 teachers consented to being temporarily suspended. 

Of the most egregious cases were eight teachers indefinitely suspended and added to Texas’ Do Not Hire Registry (DNHR) after they were charged with child sex crimes. 

They include a former female Goose Creek CISD High School counselor wanted on felony charges for an alleged sexual relationship with a student; a former Round Rock High School orchestra teacher arrested on a charge of sexual assault of a child; a former educator and counselor at several schools arrested on child pornography charges; a former Randolph Field ISD volleyball coach arrested on a charge of sexual misconduct with a student athlete; a Grand Prairie ISD middle school teacher charged with child grooming; a Connally ISD assistant band director charged with having sex with a student, possessing child pornography and sexual performance of a child; a former HISD and Klein ISD teacher arrested on a charge of sexually assaulting multiple children and fleeing the country; and a Waco ISD theater teacher charged with child grooming. 

The suspensions came one month after a new Educator Misconduct Reporting Dashboard reported nearly 16,000 misconduct reports, with nearly 2,000 being sexual complaints, The Center Square reported. It also reported more than 21,500 criminal history alerts. 

The dashboard and public reporting of data is the outworking of new laws enacted by the state legislature. Overseeing the state’s enforcement of educator misconduct policies is Levi Fuller, TEA’s first inspector general for Educator Misconduct. 

The law requires quarterly disciplinary reports to be posted, including the type of offense and the school where they are employed. The dashboard includes all reports of educator misconduct received by TEA and all criminal history alerts from the Texas Department of Public Safety and FBI; active educator misconduct investigations; SBEC sanctions; and those placed on the DNHR. 

According to the dashboard, of the educator investigations reports, 79% involve direct harm to students. 

Fifteen percent of educator investigations, 1,694, are related to inappropriate sexual/romantic relationship and inappropriate communication with students; 548 are related to sexual abuse of students. Dashboard descriptions of sexual crimes are graphic.

Gov. Greg Abbott recently appointed Courtney Boswell MacDonald to chair a new Texas Classroom Commission, a teacher-led initiative designed to “put Texas educators at the center of shaping the future of public education” and improve student outcomes, The Center Square reported.

The commission was launched after the state legislature established a new Teacher Bill of Rights for the first time last year. It includes measures to support teachers in maintaining classroom discipline.

During part of MacDonald’s tenure as chair of the SBEC, the number and percentage of uncertified teachers in Texas increased exponentially over the past five school years.

In the 2019-2020 school year, 3.8% of Texas’ 344,129 public school teachers were uncertified. By the 2024-2025 school year, 12% were, according to state data, The Center Square reported. 

Since last September, according to the dashboard, the SBEC has approved the suspension of 217 teachers.