Delays leaving criminals, sex offenders as licensed teachers, audit shows

Nevada teachers and administrators convicted of crimes have been able to evade proper disciplinary action thanks to a departmental notification system that can take up to 1,200 days, according to a December performance audit by the state Legislative Counsel Bureau.

According to a report in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the state’s top educator asserted that despite what the audit found, schoolchildren have not been placed at risk.

For five licenses that were revoked between July 2012 and March 2014, it took between 164 days and 660 days after the criminal conviction for revocation.

Two teachers who were convicted of sex crimes in 2013, for instance, still had active teaching licenses as of March 4, 2014.

“Delays in the process for reviewing criminal history reports increases the risk that the office will not timely identify a provisional licensee with a criminal history that warrants an invalidation of license,” the audit stated.

The state Education Department has already accepted the nine recommendations the auditors found to address the problem.

Read more here.