Oct. 9 SBEC Board Meeting Highlights
See also "Other SBEC Meeting Activity"
No COVID-19 Resignation Cases Sent to SBEC Thus Far
Educators Who Quit Due to COVID-19
Advised to be Mindful of SBEC Rules
TEA educator certification staff told SBEC’s board during its virtual meeting that there haven’t been any referrals, thus far, from school boards asking SBEC to suspend — for up to a year — the certifications of educators who have abruptly quit due to the educators’ concerns over COVID-19.
The comments came against the backdrop of several reports in the media from districts throughout the state about educators abruptly quitting — or who are seriously considering resigning — due to their concerns over pandemic-related health and safety issues.
(State law generally allows educators to resign without penalty for the upcoming school year if they do so on or before the 45th day before students start school for the next school year. That’s around mid-July.)
The board’s discussion on this item mainly occurred during the board’s discussion/vote on disciplinary items.
- Note: The discussion on contract abandonments starts at the 1 hour/30-minute mark here as a leadup to the hearing on the two contract abandonment cases discussed later in this article.
SBEC Enforcement Director Laura Moriaty said that two of the three reasons listed in SBEC rules for an educator to have “good cause” to abandon his or her contract — and thus escape being sanctioned — would likely be applicable in situations involving untimely resignations due to the pandemic.
Moriaty said those two “good cause” reasons are:
- A serious illness or health condition of the educator or close family member of the educator.
- A significant change in the educator’s family needs that requires the educator to relocate or to devote more time than allowed by current employment.
These two reasons — along with the third reason involving relocation when the educator’s spouse or partner gets a job in a new city — are the only criteria written into SBEC rules that are considered to be a “good cause” for an educator to have abandoned his or her public school employment contract that would not lead to SBEC suspending the educator’s certification.
Mitigating Factors
The current rules allow the one-year certification suspension period to be reduced by one or more months depending on how many “mitigating factors” may be involved — none of which involve health, safety and work environment issues.
Among the
It’s up to school boards to timely refer contract abandonment cases to SBEC, which does not independently investigate such cases without a referral from a school board.
The TEA’s SBEC staff told the board during prior meetings that some districts are more aggressive in reporting contract abandonment cases by reporting every untimely resignation to SBEC — and other districts hardly ever do so.
Educators are unable to work in ISDs or charters while their certification is under suspension.
Guidance given by the TEA in July points to SBEC’s contract abandonment rules and to detailed information by the Texas Association of School Boards — and to emergency temporary employee leave options under federal rules that could be triggered for a number of COVID-19 related reasons.
During the meeting, the board held separate, brief hearings on contract abandonment cases involving two former Houston ISD teachers in which both teachers said they quit after finding their teaching assignments to be too stressful, made them fearful for their personal safety and exacerbated their medical issues, and that they found HISD’s automated resignation notification system to be confusing. Both went on to quickly accept jobs in other districts after their untimely resignations from HISD.
The board gave one teacher a 10 month certification suspension and the other an 11 month suspension, based on recommendations by an administrative law judge.
This led board member Jose Rodriguez, a veteran Leander ISD elementary teacher, to comment that teachers, especially during their certification training, need to be made aware of the importance of understanding deadlines regarding resignations and to become familiar with the procedures and policies of their districts.
Julia Dvorak, a newly appointed citizen member to the board, asked that a work session be held to discuss various SBEC issues related to contract abandonments.