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Schools Slow To Protect Students ; Districts Have Been Cautious to Act Against Educators Accused of Harming Kids

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Frank Ortiz was an Ojo Caliente Spanish teacher suspected of impregnating a 15-year-old student who attended the school where he worked.

Ernest Dominguez was accused of inappropriately touching students in Tucumcari before moving on to Salazar Elementary in Santa Fe, where he was indicted on charges that he inappropriately touched students there.

Jose Antonio Lopez, a former assistant football coach and math teacher in Questa, pleaded guilty to battery for grabbing and squeezing a 14-year-old boy's genitals, apparently as punishment.

Despite the serious allegations, their licenses to teach remain intact, leaving the door open for each of them to move among the state's 89 districts. And there's not much of a mechanism in place to warn schools they move to of their pasts.

The state agency charged with licensing educators in New Mexico says that even when serious allegations are made against a teacher or school administrator, the agency must wait for the judicial system to run its course. Critics say that by allowing teachers accused of hurting children to bounce from district to district, the Public Education Department and school districts are not carry- ing out their responsibility to keep students safe.

Like other licensed professionals, New Mexico educators have standards of professional conduct they are supposed to follow. The creed includes the statement, "We endeavor to stimulate students to think and to learn while at the same time we seek to protect them from any harm."

But protecting students from harm sometimes takes a back seat to other considerations.

Rights vs. safety

James Ball, assistant secretary for educator quality, acknowledged that the Public Education Department is in the business of protecting children. He said the department investigates complaints against teachers. But he said a balance between teacher rights and student safety must be struck.

While a criminal conviction is not necessary, it is best to have one before taking action against a license, Ball said.

"If we took a license away and if they were found innocent, it would be a serious problem of jumping the gun," Ball said.

The possibility of being sued weighs on PED officials' minds. If the PED revoked a teacher's license and he or she were found innocent in a court of law, the teacher most likely would want to be reinstated.

"I feel for certain we would be sued for damages," Ball said.

Even warning districts where the teachers move to may be inappropriate. "We can't malign a teacher to a potential employer," he said.

But not all professional associations base discipline primarily on what a judge does.

Two of the state's other licensing entities, the New Mexico Medical Board, which polices doctors, and the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court, which oversees lawyers, say they routinely take action against licenses when professionals violate the rules of conduct they're required to uphold, regardless of whether criminal charges have been filed.

"It's not to punish lawyers, it's to protect the public," said Virginia Ferrara, chief disciplinary counsel for the Supreme Court disciplinary board.

Jenny Felmley, spokeswoman for the Medical Board, said a similar standard is in place for her group.

"I believe all regulatory boards have the same purpose, which is to protect the public," Felmley said.

No guarantees

Investigations and administrative hearings can be organized by the education department in order to revoke a teacher's license, but the case against the teacher is much stronger if there is a criminal conviction, Ball said.

Even with a conviction, revocation isn't a certainty.

Ball uses the case of Chris Dannenberg to illustrate the point.

In August 1998 Dannenberg was caught purchasing more than $100 worth of crack cocaine by Albuquerque police. He had been partying all night while his 6-year-old daughter was home alone.

Dannenberg, 35 at the time and a public school teacher in Espaola, eventually pleaded guilty to charges that included child abandonment.

The Education Department initiated proceedings to have Dannenberg's license revoked.

But in April 1999 a state district judge granted Dannenberg a conditional discharge, meaning his convictions would be erased if he successfully completed probation.

"He yanked the carpet right out from under me," Ball said of the district judge.

Dannenberg's license was not revoked and he was allowed to continue teaching -- even though one of the guidelines for revoking a teacher's license is a guilty plea to a particular crime, including child abandonment.

The ultimate decision on whether to suspend a teaching license used to rest with the state Board of Education. But after being elected governor, Bill Richardson -- citing the need for greater public accountability -- asked for and received voter approval for a constitutional amendment placing a Cabinet secretary in charge of public schools. The decision on whether to suspend a teaching license now rests with Richardson's education secretary, Veronica Garcia.

The Public Education Department has a policy in place that gives it the authority to suspend or even revoke a teaching license after conducting a hearing for any number of misdeeds, including lying on licensure applications, failure to pay child support, inappropriately touching a student or carrying on a romantic relationship with a student.

And the department only needs to prove that the teacher committed the infraction by a "preponderance" of the evidence, a much lower standard than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard used in determining guilt in our country's legal system.

But that's on paper.

Guilty, still teaching

Jose Antonio Lopez -- now an employee of the Jemez Mountain school district -- continues to teach with no action having ever been taken against his license, despite his guilty plea to a charge stemming from his grabbing and squeezing a student's genitals while working at a Questa public school in 2002.

His license remains intact although on a license renewal application in early 2003, he denied that he had ever been disciplined or suspended from any job because of allegations of misconduct.

A Questa Police Department report states that the Questa school had suspended Lopez for a week without pay and required that he seek anger management counseling for having grabbed the student's genitals.

The PED announced late Friday -- the day after the Journal questioned the apparent discrepancy -- that it is "opening an investigation on his license."

"No justice has been served to this day. The guy is still teaching," said Ellis Garcia, the stepfather of Jesus Manuel Ramirez, the boy Lopez grabbed.

"(Lopez) showed up at another school," he said. "He was able to dance around all these little issues."

Kathy Borrego, business manager for Jemez Mountain schools, said that if district officials had known about the Questa incident, "he wouldn't be here." Lopez now teaches at Jemez Mountain's Coronado Middle High School in Gallina.

The Lopez case was news to the PED's Ball, who said the education department often hears about inappropriate behavior by teachers through the media, even though superintendents are supposed to inform the department.

Also, six districts polled by the Journal do not check for any civil cases filed against prospective teachers.

Another loophole for teachers is confidentiality agreements. Such agreements often prohibit district officials from disclosing why a teacher left. In exchange, the educator agrees to leave quietly and to not sue the district.

The agreements often allow teachers to leave a district without a record of allegations of misconduct.

Ball said districts should not be able to execute such agreements if a teacher has broken the rules of teacher ethics.

"We are adamant about ensuring the safety of our students," said Catherine Cross Maple, deputy secretary of the PED, in a statement. "We will work closely with superintendents and legislators to make sure our children are safe in our schools."

The education department plans to ask lawmakers to create a statute for background checks on all renewals of teacher licenses. It also will lobby the Legislature to ban confidential agreements when teachers are alleged to have violated the standards of professional conduct.

Lowering ethics

Teacher ethics are lowered when districts enter into these types of agreements, said Robert Shoop, a professor at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., who has provided expert witness testimony in a number of states in cases involving alleged student abuse at the hands of teachers. His most recent book is "Sexual Exploitation in Schools: How To Spot It and Stop It."

The receiving district is led to believe it is hiring a good, competent educator, without knowing the truth.

"That is unethical behavior. It perpetuates passing the trash," Shoop said in a telephone interview this week.

Barbara Perea Casey, assistant superintendent of Las Vegas City Schools, said that when she was superintendent of a southern New Mexico school district a number of years ago, she hired a teacher after being told "he was wonderful" by his previous employer.

Perea Casey said she ended up firing the teacher about a week after he started because she received complaints that he was making inappropriate sexual remarks to students. She later found out that the teacher had been fired from his previous job for similar behavior. When she confronted the teacher's previous supervisor, she was told the district didn't want to be sued. Nothing showed up on that teacher's background check because he hadn't been convicted, Perea Casey said.

"It's just wrong to pass these people around and not have the backbone to do what needs to be done. I did request that his license be pulled," said Perea Casey, a former state lawmaker. To this day, she added, she doesn't know whether any action was taken against the teacher's license.

Two intact licenses

Frank Ortiz, meanwhile, tendered his resignation in January of this year, about the same time that the Mesa Vista district initiated termination proceedings against him. The former Mesa Vista High School teacher was arrested later that month on charges of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, criminal sexual contact of a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Ortiz's license, the department said late Friday, is under investigation.

Court documents alleged that he had sex with a student, who was pregnant at the time of his arrest. Among the evidence police had collected was an email purportedly from Ortiz to the girl in which Ortiz states, "Hey Baby I am doing fine. I really had a good time. I am so happy I was able to spend the entire evening with you. You are so beautiful and it's all good."

Ortiz married the girl -- 16 at the time -- at a Las Vegas, Nev., wedding chapel on New Year's Day. The girl denied that Ortiz was her baby's father, and authorities are still trying to establish paternity.

The prosecutor has dropped the charges against Ortiz but pledged to refile them if she is able to definitively establish that Ortiz is the father of the girl's baby.

And then there's Ernest Dominguez, who is awaiting trial on multiple counts of criminal sexual contact and two counts of bribing or intimidating a witness, all arising out of allegations that he molested four students at Salazar Elementary School in Santa Fe.

Dominguez has left a trail of accusations that spawned lawsuits in two school districts.

While working at the nowdefunct Granger Elementary School in Tucumcari in 1997 and 1998, Dominguez was accused of inappropriately touching a number of students. The Quay County District Attorney declined to prosecute, citing insufficient evidence. A six-month investigation by the education department yielded little evidence.

Dominguez was allowed to resign and eventually moved on to Santa Fe, where he was accused of molesting four boys between Aug. 1, 2001, and Nov. 1, 2002. The students were fifthand sixth-graders at the time. Dominguez subsequently resigned.

He was indicted on more than four dozen counts of child molestation and related charges and is under house arrest in Tucumcari while awaiting trial on the charges.

A federal lawsuit filed over the alleged Santa Fe abuse accuses Dominguez of sexually touching many boys in his class. The acts, the suit states, included placing his hands on and inside students' underwear and fondling their genitals.

Despite the indictments and having racked up inappropriate touching allegations at two schools, his license remains intact, though the PED said it is once again investigating him.

The lawsuit, meanwhile, alleges that the Public Education Department, the Santa Fe Public Schools and the Tucumcari Municipal Schools, among others, failed in their responsibility to keep students safe. The suit was filed on behalf of two of the alleged victims and also names Dominguez as a defendant. Tucumcari schools and its officials were recently dropped as defendants.

District officials in both Tucumcari and Santa Fe signed confidentiality agreements with Dominguez, barring them from discussing the circumstances surrounding his departures, except in specific cases.

Districts are making the wrong choice when they enter into these confidentiality agreements, said Shoop, the Kansas State professor. Most are doing so because they fear defamation lawsuits, but they fail to consider other consequences.

"Everything in life is a choice. Districts must make assessments - - which consequence do they want to live with, a wrongful discharge suit or with a child rape case?" Shoop said.

Source: Albuquerque Journal

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