State Senate Mulling 'Student-Protection' Bill

Spawned by one too many Mary Kay Letourneau-like stories coming out of the state, a new bill is waiting for Senate approval in Olympia. The "Student Protection Bill" would expand the crimes for which Washington State teachers could lose their certification. The proposed bill also seeks to encourage more oversight at the local level, asking school districts to report teachers who have displayed "boundary issues," which would not necessitate legal action. It also hopes to encourage inter-district information sharing, and would allow school superintendents to file profession-practice complaints about teachers in districts outside their own.

What Seattlest found most interesting were the proposed crimes which would now incur immediate firing and revocation of teaching credentials. For the first time, crimes such as kidnapping a minor, incest, and promoting prostitution of a minor would be added to the list of revocable offenses. A number of crimes against adults, including violent assaults and rape, are also mentioned in the bill. So someone convicted of kidnapping or pimping out a child can, at this moment, be hired and certified as a teacher in Washington State? How little sense does that make?

It would seem, even without the recent examples of teachers abusing students—like Tacoma teacher Jennifer Rice, who is accused of kidnapping and raping a 10-year-old—it might be a good idea to disqualify people with a history of violence and exploitation of children from teaching.

The addition of crimes against adults to the bill is said to be inspired by the case of Harold Wright Jr., a Tacoma middle school principal, who was only placed on a leave of absence after a recent rape conviction. Wright's victim, who was 19 years old, was too old to require automatic dismissal under the current law. The proposed bill has earned the support of the State's Teachers Union, the Association of Washington School Principals, and the Washington Education Association.

"A Kiss for Teacher" a 60's Romance Comic, collected by Flickr Contributor Vermont Ferret