State uses licensing database to check on teachers

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 | 9:37 a.m.

While it's important for school districts to have full access to a potential employee's criminal background, that isn't the only measure of a person's fitness for the job, State Superintendent Keith Rheault said.

In addition to law enforcement records, the Nevada Department of Education also relies on a database maintained by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, Rheault said. The database collects records of licenses, suspensions and revocations from all 50 states, U.S. territories, British Columbia, New Zealand and several Canadian provinces, according to the organization's Web site.

Each month the state education department gets an updated report of the most recent license activity in other states and compares it against the roster of Nevada's current teachers, Rheault said.

Of the more than 5,000 licenses issued to full-time and substitute teachers last year, just four names surfaced on the cross-check of disciplinary actions taken by other state education departments, Rheault said.

Last year the state added a new question to its teacher licensing application: Have you ever been the subject of an investigation?

"We used to just ask them if their license had ever been suspended or revoked somewhere else and they could honestly answer 'no,"' Rheault said. "Now we have grounds to take action ourselves if we find out down the line that someone lied on their application."

Nevada was recently notified that a former Clark County School District teacher had her Georgia teaching license revoked, Rheault said. The state education department is in the process of determining whether the woman failed to disclose facts on her application last year, Rheault said.

Because the investigation is ongoing Rheault declined to identify the teacher or the reason for the revocation of her Georgia license. If department staff recommend suspension or revocation the state Board of Education would have to vote on the matter and the woman's identity would become public record, Rheault said.

Nevada added its own name to the national association's database earlier this month -- Ronald J. Williamson, a math teacher at Desert Pines High School, had his license revoked for helping students cheat on the statewide proficiency exam in May 2003. Williamson's present location is unknown, though state officials say they think he may have gone to Florida.

While Williamson's actions don't rise to the level of an offense that would be recorded by the FBI database, they still say something about his qualifications, Rheault said.

"If a person is willing to copy a statewide exam what other moral deficiencies might they have?" Rheault asked. "At the very least it raises serious questions about their ethical standards."

Gary Waters, president of the state Board of Education, said he believed Nevada had an obligation to notify Florida education officials as quickly as possible of the revocation.

"We know how transient teachers are these days, bouncing from state to state," Waters said. "We all have to watch out for each other on stuff like this."