Lost applications, 14-month lag in discipline process found by audit

Oregon Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins released, on January 14, a highly critical report of the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission, an agency that oversees nearly 20,000 K-12 teacher licenses. Atkins found numerous "substantial" deficiencies with the small but "crucial" agency, such as the Commission's inability to issue licenses, complete investigations, and its lack of timely responses to educators' questions. The agency did "generally agree" to the audit's primary recommendations, which centered on fixing its licensure processing, license service, complaint investigations, customer service, working environments, and oversight and accountability. In all, the audit listed 35 recommendations for the agency, which agreed to comply with all except one.

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