By FREDRIC U. DICKER, State Editor
June 19, 2008
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson yesterday announced agreement on a new law to automatically boot tenured teachers from their jobs if they're convicted of sexual assaults or other felonies that put them on the state's sex-offender registry.
"For teachers who are convicted of felonies and who appear on the registry, the district attorney will contact the state Education Department," which will then revoke their teaching license, Paterson said.
The new law is aimed at eliminating situations such as one recent New York City case in which officials waged a costly, six-month battle to fire a teacher who had sodomized a 13-year-old student.
"This will effectively put an equal sign between a conviction for one of the sex crimes and the revocation of the individual's [teaching] certification," said state Senate Education Committee Chairman Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie).
Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Westchester) said the measure means "school districts won't have to go through unnecessary procedures to make sure that people who have harmed students are not in the system."
A separate measure would revoke the licenses for school administrators who have been "proven to have defrauded the government."
Additional reporting by Brendan Scott
