Christopher Durham somehow managed to find work as a public schoolteacher in North Texas not once, but twice, and only because he fled Oklahoma in violation of bail restrictions. Wait, twice? Are not school districts responsible for doing background checks in our state before putting adults in charge of children? Well, of course we do. Just not very good ones, apparently. And part of this is because school districts would rather not know and settle things quietly, instead of speaking up and possibly preventing the next district from making a bad hire. And who pays? God forbid it's your kid. Durham was fired after his arrest from Epic Charter Schools in Oklahoma City. Although he disputes that characterization, he he jumped the Red River and soon enough found a teaching job at Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth.
A spokesman for Fort Worth ISD had no idea of Durham's Sandy Hook threat that he made while employed with the Oklahoma school system, but once they became aware, FWISD began taking steps to get rid of him. Instead, "after consultation with his representative, he was allowed to resign," Worse, FWISD had no legal obligation to report anything to anyone, particularly the State Board of Educator Certification. Moral obligation? Hey, sorry. Durham was on down the road, not their problem anymore. "Since he committed no crime, offense or incident that would have required us to notify parents, while at that school, no notification was sent," Bond said. Comforting, eh?
So Durham next surfaces a year later at Grand Prairie Collegiate Institute. Since no one has bothered to tell anyone else, Grand Prairie ISD blithely hires him to teach middle school.
Only because middle school students are so inquisitive about people, Christopher Durham was simply googled. As a result, his arrest in Oklahoma showed up. Two a Texas school districts later, Durham is under investigation by Texas education officials, facing criminal charges in Oklahoma. Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office stated that it is necessary, too, as long as school districts stick to a don't-know-don't-tell-don't-care policy. The Texas Education Agency is finally investigating Durham, and at least he has not been accused of any improper relationships with students. That will be a topic in the 2017 Legislature, as the TEA asks for another $400,000 to bolster its educator investigations unit. As it stands, the Texas Tribune reports that TEA has seven investigators working 1,110 open cases — 222 involving improper student-teacher situations — numbers that continue to rise. This, too, contributes to the phenomenon known as "passing the trash," where districts quietly cut problem teachers, only to unknowingly hire someone else's problem. Have we not learned from past issues like the Catholic Church's disastrous experience of shuffling bad-acting priests from parish to parish? The circle never ends unless someone cuts it off and makes it end. As the districts themselves might argue, no one has. One would think this is a priority that any legislator could support, although one also might think you would not need a sixth-grader to run a Google search.
Analysis:
This article was written for the Dallas Morning News by Mike Hassimito. I have never read any previous articles by this author. I feel this article was written with a little sarcasm to reflect how easily Texas ISD's pass the trash (even using the background check system) and a 6th grader simply found the information by doing a simple google search. It is slightly embarrassing that this occurred. I am glad this article was written and more light is being brought to ensuring every teacher who teaches in a Texas classroom will have a heightened screening so that we get the BEST teachers in our classroom.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/10/07/another-bad-teacher-slips-past-know-tell-texas-school-districts
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