Teacher Misconduct in the Classroom

A recent audit released in November 2012 finds that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has been slow to report on teacher misconduct in the school district. According to the report, LAUSD officials have repeatedly failed to promptly inform a California panel about serious allegations of teacher misconduct, teacher perversity, teacher lewdness, and numerous incidents of LAUSD teacher employees groping and molesting children at will.

For the record, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California. The Los Angeles Unified School District is the 2nd largest public school district in the United States, behind only the New York City Department of Education.

In recent years, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has served over 700,000 students, and has over 46,473 teachers and over 39,594 other employees.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County, after the county government.

The numbers are impressive, but so is the peril to children and youth. It is estimated that approximately 3 percent of LAUSD teachers have engaged in some form of prohibited conduct involving either students or teachers.

The recent audit is indeed frightening, but should not come as any surprise because the standards of employment for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) have been steadlily droppng for over 20 years. As the school systems contends with numerous new citizens, recent immigrants, an surge in various nationalities, new and expanding definitions of societal standards and mores, and its regid attempts to recruit a workforce that can accomodate such vast dissimilarities, it is not altogether surprising that various problems will arise.

Approximately, 10 months ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District was left reeling by the arrest of a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School for allegedly spoon-feeding semen to students in a classroom. Clearly, he teacher involved must have been involved in some incident prior to this sick episode.

At the time, Los Angeles Unified School District officials acknowledged that they did not swiftly send all serious misconduct allegations to a government commission on Teacher Credentialing, which apparently keeps a database that school systems use to verify teaching licenses.

The shocking audit found that Los Angeles Unified School District officials submitted at least 144 cases of alleged teacher misconduct more than a year later than required, and at least 31 of cases of alleged teacher perversity/misconduct were not submitted until at least three years after the accusation or act; consequently, the safety of students and fellow teachers were being neglected.

In school districts such as the Los Angeles Unified School District officials and the Clark County School District (another hit bed of teacher perversity), students and parents need to be informed of teachers who have been accused, warned, or lawfully charged with misconduct.

So, what does all this mean for students and youth? The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) must do a better job of teacher recruitment, and background investigations. Single teachers need to be scrutinized more, along with single men.