NYS Board of Regents approves 'fast track' license suspensions for teachers accused of sex abuse
State officials have estimated the new rule would impact about a dozen teachers annually. Credit: Jeffrey Basinger
The state Education Department can temporarily suspend the teaching license of an educator accused of sexually abusing students, under a new rule approved Tuesday by the state's policymaking Board of Regents.
The “immediate, interim” license suspension “ensures that students are protected,” state officials said, by eliminating a teacher’s ability to be in a classroom while their case proceeds through a lengthy disciplinary process.
The 17-person board unanimously approved the change at its meeting in Albany. The rule will go into effect May 21.
Long Island school officials applauded the change, which Hampton Bays Superintendent Lars Clemensen said “will prevent the accused from stepping foot in another school building until the matter has been fully investigated and resolved.”
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The state Board of Regents unanimously approved a new rule Tuesday that would allow the temporary suspension of the teaching license of an educator accused of sexually abusing students.
- State officials said the change eliminates a teacher’s ability to be in a classroom while their case proceeds through a lengthy disciplinary process.
- The rule change, which goes into effect May 21, could impact about a dozen teachers a year, state officials have said.
The new rule “enhances our ability to protect school communities by ensuring that staff licenses can be promptly revoked when necessary, reinforcing our commitment to safe, supportive schools,” said Paul Defendini, president of the Nassau Council of School Superintendents, in a statement.
New York State United Teachers, the state’s largest teachers union, also supported the rule change, because the group believes "they strike the right balance in protecting students and protecting due process,” spokesman Ben Amey said in an email.
$167M in sex-abuse settlements
Allegations of teachers sexually abusing students have rocked Long Island school districts in recent years.
Districts have paid $167 million to settle 117 lawsuits by former students who say they were abused as children, according to a Newsday analysis of court and school records. More than 50 similar lawsuits remain active, including nearly two dozen against the Bay Shore district, which has already paid about $55 million in settlements.
And the state Attorney General’s Office confirmed this week that it continues to investigate the Babylon school district — nearly four years after former students accused a dozen former teachers of sexual misconduct at an hourslong board meeting.
Babylon alumna Brittany Rohl, the first to publicly come forward in 2021, praised the state Board of Regents for a rule change that she said she hopes will “close one of the many gaps in common-sense policies that cases like the cluster at Babylon help expose.”
“Coming forward, even so publicly, nonetheless felt like a shout into the void, and things like this feel like a long-awaited echo of that shout, that maybe people outside of our immediate community have been listening all along,” she told Newsday in an email.
'Fast track' hearing
State education officials suggested in January the rule change would impact about a dozen teachers a year.
The accused teachers would be afforded a "fast track" summary hearing before the education commissioner can impose a temporary license suspension that would sideline the teacher until all appeals in their cases are settled, state officials said.
The state must show the allegations are "based upon sworn statements, personal knowledge, and/or exhibits that demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the public health, safety or welfare imperatively requires emergency action to summarily suspend the individual’s certification," officials said.
Under current state law, to terminate a tenured educator, districts must file charges with the state, then present evidence — typically through witness testimony — before a state-appointed hearing officer who decides the case and the penalty. That process can take a year.
A Newsday investigation published in 2023 found that districts more commonly sidestep that process by allowing the teachers to resign in settlement agreements that don't mention the allegations.
If the state Education Department's investigatory unit decides to pursue action against the teacher's license, a separate state-appointed hearing officer holds a new hearing, often with the same witnesses testifying again. That process can take even longer, up to several years, records show.
In the last two years, the state revoked the licenses of seven Long Island teachers, including one who had been arrested in 2019 on theft charges and then terminated by her district via a hearing officer a year later.
Seven other teachers chose to surrender their licenses instead of defending their cases in a hearing; those include a former Babylon teacher who hadn't been in a classroom since 2018.
Allegations that a teacher sexually abused a student are challenging for state investigators to pursue because young victims are often reticent to speak up, feel conflicted about their relationship with their abuser and would need to recount the trauma while testifying in order for the state to prove the charges, said Norman G. Schneider, an Alexandria, Virginia-based attorney who has represented abuse victims.
The new rule change is a positive development, he said, because it adds another layer of accountability. "Teacher abuse does happen, it is a serious problem, and any action taken to prevent it is a good thing," he said.
The new rule could provide districts with a mechanism for financial relief from having to pay a teacher their salary while they are suspended, said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.
For example, records show Babylon paid suspended teacher Timothy Harrison nearly $200,000 after he was arrested in March 2022 until he pleaded guilty in September 2023 to having sex with a 15-year-old. Part of his agreement included surrendering his teacher’s license, at which point he resigned from the Babylon district, records show.
Vecchio said a teacher with a suspended license could allow districts to make a case to avoid paying that teacher's salary — “a smart approach to a longstanding problem,” he said.
Jim Baumbach is an award-winning investigative reporter at Newsday, where he has worked since 1998. He spent two decades in the sports department, where he covered every professional team and league, including events such as the Super Bowl and World Series.
