Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

A teacher dismissal bill aimed at ensuring the teachers accused of sexual misconduct can be removed from the classroom in a timely manner took another step towards becoming state law last week.

As reported by the Sacramento Bee, the legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo) and championed by the state teachers unions “would make it easier to discipline and fire teachers accused of misconduct” and passed 51-12. Designated “AB 375,” it now heads over to the Senate.

While the LAUSD Board of Education has voted in support of the goals and objectives of the legislation, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has expressed concerns about the legislation which remain despite a series of amendments that have been made.

“We still have some of the same issues,” said a LAUSD official familiar with the legislation, referring to the membership of the panel that oversees teacher dismissal cases and the timeframe under which cases must be resolved.  ‘We continue to feel that more could be done around the CPC panel.”

Former Democratic state lawmaker Gloria Romero, now head of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) California, is even more critical of the current legislation, writing in the Orange County Register that AB 375 has some merit but “the underlying impetus of the bill remains protection of teachers’ due process rights” instead of protecting children. Romero derides LAUSD as being “desperate for any change” and declares that “now is not the time to settle for a disingenuous bill.”

Previous posts: Deasy Requests Changes to Teacher Dismissal Bill; State Teachers Union Rejects Criticism of Teacher Dismissal Bill; Villaraigosa Expresses Concerns About Teacher Dismissal Bill