Panel OKs teacher pay suspension

03/17/2006

Teachers charged with felonies could be put on unpaid leave under House bill

BY MEGAN BOLDT
Pioneer Press

Minnesota teachers who are charged with a felony could be suspended without pay under a bill that a House committee approved Thursday.

State law allows a school board to immediately fire a teacher if convicted of a felony. But if that person is just charged with such a crime, most school districts in Minnesota can only put the instructor on paid suspension until the legal proceedings and a district discharge hearing are finished.

“It’s about local control,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano. “Just because someone is charged with a felony doesn’t mean they’re going to be suspended without pay. This allows school boards to sit down, review the information they have and make the appropriate decision.”

Three school districts — St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth — already can suspend teachers without pay if they’re charged with a felony. The bill requires school districts to give a teacher back pay if the charges are dropped and the instructor is not penalized or terminated.

School board officials argue that previous sex crime accusations have caused outrage in the community when the teacher still draws a public check.

Grace Schwab, director of governmental relations for the Minnesota School Boards Association, said there have been some cases in the state where a teacher is accused of pornography possession or sexual conduct with a student and the school district has no choice but to put the employee on paid leave.

That happened to Hastings in 1998 when an English teacher at Hastings High School was charged with criminal sexual conduct for a relationship she was having with a 10th-grade student. Julie Anne Feil, who was 32 at the time of her conviction, was sentenced six months later to seven years in prison.

“When the school districts have to pay these people … the community just goes crazy,” Schwab said. “And I don’t blame them.”

Jan Alswager, manager of government relations for the statewide teachers union Education Minnesota, said there are situations where teachers are falsely accused, and taking away pay before a teacher is found innocent or guilty just adds to the turmoil.

Republican Rep. Karen Klinzing, a former teacher from Woodbury, agreed and argued those who are falsely accused already go through enough and are treated like they are guilty as soon as they’re charged.

“Their names are raked through the mud, only to find out they’re innocent a year or two later,” she said.

Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan, said three school districts in the state’s largest cities already have the authority to suspend without pay and rarely use the power. That decision should be expanded to the rest of the state’s school districts, he said.

Supporters also argued that cities and counties have the authority to put employees on unpaid leave pending a criminal investigation. Patricia Beety, counsel for the League of Minnesota Cities, said it has happened but it’s rare.
But Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, said maybe the better decision is to take that authority away from those three school districts.

“Why is it that Minneapolis and St. Paul and Duluth have the power to say someone is guilty before proven guilty?” Greiling asked. “I think that’s the question we should be asking.”