When teachers misbehave, who pays?

It was Spring 2014, and four teaching assistants at Wayne Local Schools in Warren County hit their tipping point. They wanted to give their colleague the benefit of the doubt, but on May 28, they watched her throw a marker at a handicapped, non-verbal student, hitting the child in the head.

"The same day, a racial comment was directed toward the same student," the assistants wrote in a letter dated May 29. "After applying a bandage to the student's leg, (Intervention Specialist Pamela Bullock) said, 'Anything else, your highness? ... My people fought for years, so we wouldn't have to serve white people like you.' "

Bullock, who declined to comment for this article, is one of at least 34 Greater Cincinnati educators reported to the state since January 2014 for criminal or ethical misconduct. Some of those allegations made big headlines – teachers having sex with students, a band director accused of using his position for personal financial gain.

Others, however, seemed to slip by unnoticed.

The week before they wrote the letter, the Wayne teaching assistants claimed they saw Bullock get frustrated with a student and take the safety wheels off the student's wheelchair, according to their letter. The student tends to tip her chair back when misbehaving, and the safety wheels prevent the chair flipping.

"In addition, there is a great lack of teaching in the functional skills classroom for intensive needs special education students," the letter states. "On most days, (Bullock) sits at her computer, while paraprofessionals create activities and try to teach the students.

"It is not the intention of this letter to be vindictive or to attack (Bullock). However, as paraprofessionals, we are required to be advocates for our students."

Bullock resigned after the district initiated termination procedures. Two of her supervisors, then-elementary school principal Jean Hartman and then-special education coordinator Amanda Johnson, were put on paid administrative leave for allegedly knowing about Bullock's actions but not immediately reporting them. Neither is currently employed by the district. Johnson declined comment. Hartman could not be reached.

In the best interests of students

The Enquirer submitted records requests to 48 districts in Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont counties regarding the misconduct reports, and all provided the information.

Twenty eight had no reports. Six had more than one.

There were three reports of teachers convicted of sexual relationships with students; four reports of teachers allegedly involved in physical altercations with students; and four reports of academic fraud, where teachers allegedly falsified test results or gave students answers ahead of time.

It's important to note that not every referral to the Ohio Department of Education results in an investigation, and not every investigation results in disciplinary action. There was a report from Milford Exempted Village Schools, for example, where a supplemental coach was being paid twice for the same role – once by the district and once by the band boosters. The coach didn't know that was illegal, according to the report, and he repaid the money. ODE decided not to investigate.

Statewide, ODE resolved 676 investigations in 2014, and only 449, or 66 percent, resulted in some form of discipline, ranging from a letter of admonishment to license revocation. With roughly 300,000 licensed educators in Ohio, that means relatively few are tangled up in the discipline process.

"The overwhelming number of teachers in the state have the best interests of kids at heart," said ODE spokesman John Charlton. "They want to, No. 1, protect them and keep them safe, and No. 2, to educate them and help them move on to have a successful life."

Only one district in The Enquirer review, Monroe Local Schools, redacted the name of the teacher involved, saying it falls under the same category as releasing a teacher's home address or Social Security number. The Enquirer disagrees with the redaction but did not file a formal complaint. The Monroe teacher in question apparently "fudged" scores for some of his students to make his end-of-year assessment look better, records show. He was turned in by a fellow teacher, admitted to changing the scores and was suspended without pay for three days.

"He has since then demonstrated genuine remorse for his action," the district report states, adding that the man in question is "a young teacher who has great potential. His lessons are exciting, his students are engaged. He goes above and beyond by attending many student activities, and is co-directing our fall musical."

Letting teachers resign

At Loveland City Schools, special education aide Amber Browning was going to be fired. Browning reportedly yanked on a student's hair to "teach him a lesson." The student was nonverbal and had autism, according to the district report, and he had a history of pulling the hair of those working with him.

The district investigated, decided to fire Browning, then allowed her to resign instead, records show.

At Little Miami Local Schools, another special education aide, Mary Kamps, was accused of slapping a student in the face. The student was acting out physically, the report states, so teachers put the student in a safety hold.

"During the physical hold, Ms. Kamps slapped Student on the face," the report states. "She also grabbed Student's face, placed her face in incredibly close proximity to Student's face, and gave Student a directive not to speak to her in that manner."

Kamps also was allowed to resign rather than being fired. The state took her license.

Sometimes, it's a matter of simply wanting the offender gone as quickly as possible, said Wayne Local Schools Superintendent Patrick Dubbs. Firing a teacher requires a legal process that is often timely and costly. Letting him or her resign is immediate.

In Bullock's case, the intervention specialist accused of throwing the marker, "when we weighed the options, we felt that we wanted to accept that resignation so that there was an immediate break with us and her, and more importantly, the kids involved," Dubbs said.

He reported the incident to children services and police, but ultimately, neither decided to take action, he said. ODE has not taken any action against Bullock's license, either, records show.

A month or two prior to her resignation, Bullock was honored with the Area Progress Council of Warren County's Project Excellence award, given to two teachers from each Warren County district each year. An Internet search pulls up a post on the Wayne schools website, a picture of Bullock and Dubbs posing in a classroom with a congratulatory flower arrangement.

To Dubbs, this soured the situation even more.

"We had seen a lot of good things out of her over the time she was at Waynesville, and what transpired was extremely disappointing when it came out," he said. "I believe we do good things, and I guess that's why I so appalled or upset by what came out, because we do do a really good job with our kids."

A true reference, or 'passing the trash'?

ODE maintains a state database of disciplinary information. Users can search by name or district to see any actions imposed on any educator. That prevents a practice commonly called "passing the trash," Charlton said, where a teacher would misbehave in one district, resign in lieu of being fired, and move on to another.

The state also reports discipline to a federal database, an attempt to prevent "passing the trash" from one state to another.

"The top priority is the safety of our students, so that is why we have the system in place," Charlton said. "It's important that those (violations) get reported to us so we can take action against the license, and we can serve as kind of the clearinghouse for the entire state."

Some argue, though, that it's not enough.

In central Ohio, Jeffrey Poulton was fired by Columbus City Schools after he engaged in a romantic relationship with a teacher during school hours, according to ODE records. Poulton then got a job with North Fork Local Schools in southeast Ohio, but he was let go after only one month. From there, he went to Tennessee, where he resigned after he was suspended for alleged inappropriate communication with a student.

The kicker: North Fork principal Mark Bowman gave Poulton a glowing recommendation for the Tennessee job. He rated Poulton "above average" in every category, saying he would rehire Poulton and that he was "great to be around – a plus in any system."

ODE officially took Poulton's license on March 10, citing the Columbus incident and an allegation that Poulton had a romantic relationship with a student back in 2009 – before the Columbus firing, before North Fork, and before Tennessee.

Nationwide, "passing the trash" is an epidemic, said Terri Miller, president of the Las Vegas-based advocacy group Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct & Exploitation, or S.E.S.A.M.E. Too often, educators are allowed to resign rather than fired for misconduct, Miller said. They sign a confidentiality clause, and they go work in another school.

To Miller, it's not an accident. It's educators and their bosses who are intentionally covering up misdeeds, who are not reporting crimes to law enforcement let alone ODE, and who are sending dangerous teachers on to interact with more children.

"This practice has proliferated the problem to such an extent that we have a pool of unknown child predators in our classrooms right now," Miller said. "And we don't know who they are. And we won't know who they are until they offend again."

Overall, Ohio is moving in the right direction, said John Seryak, a 35-year teaching veteran, central Ohio resident and S.E.S.A.M.E. vice president. People seem more and more willing to talk about misconduct, and less and less willing to tolerate it, he said.

Still, the system needs much more transparency, he said.

Seryak thinks education as a whole needs to elevate its level of professionalism. In some cases, the issue isn't teachers not living up their billing, he said; it's the profession letting in people who never should have been granted licenses in the first place. There needs to be a higher entrance bar, he said, and that starts with college admission to teaching programs.

"The professional misconduct comes in simply because the adults that get into the field maybe aren't the professional, mature adults that the field requires," he said.

Finally, Ohio needs to squelch any vestige of the "good-ol'-boys" syndrome, and unions need to get rid of the mentality that "they're going to protect any teacher under any circumstance," Seryak said.

"I believe in due process 100 percent," he said, "but I don't believe in protecting someone who is not appropriate for the classroom."