Sen. Lopez set to introduce legislation focusing on charged teachers

Legislation is set to be introduced looking to prevent teachers who have faced certain criminal charges, from teaching again.

Republican Senator Ernie Lopez is the bill’s author. He argues the state should not be protecting teachers charged with crimes of a violent or sexual nature. He says the State Department of Education should be required to fully disclose the details of the removal of a teaching license to all schools so everyone is on the same page about a given teacher.

“We currently have situations that we have teachers who have been criminally charged, and who have been fired and let go of their positions who wind up teaching in other places. What have is an issue where we haven’t connected the dots,” Lopez told 47 ABC.

Senator Lopez has not made a distinction thus far between criminally charged and criminally convicted. He tells us that there is a small number of teachers involved in this type of activity and that there is a common disconnect in catching them as they go from private to public schools or vice versa.