Tougher Laws Boot More Teachers Guilty of Sexual Misconduct (MI)
Catherine
Tougher Laws Boot More Teachers Guilty of Sexual Misconduct
Posted: 7:25 PM Oct 20, 2007
Last Updated: 7:25 PM Oct 20, 2007
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Timothy Romisch resigned from Holland West Middle
School in 1986 after being arrested for trying to meet with a 14-year-old
female student after placing notes attached to pornography in her school
locker and making anonymous calls to her at home.
He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of accosting a student for
immoral purposes, paid a fine and moved to southeast Michigan.
Just a year later, Romisch landed a job as a middle school teacher at our
Lady Queen of Martyrs School in Birmingham. In 1992, he took a job teaching
high school science and math at Southfield Christian School, although he was
barred from coaching a girls' team because of the earlier charge.
The Michigan Department of Education was aware of his legal issues. But a
hearing panel approved a provisional teaching certificate in 1992, and he
was granted regular teaching certificates three times over the next 13
years.
Department spokesman Martin Ackley said the department was advised by an
assistant attorney general to renew his professional license in 2000 because
Romisch had been teaching without further incidents.
It wasn't until a series of state laws intended to keep sex offenders and
certain felons away from children were passed in 2005 that Romisch's past
caught up to him.
With sex offenders banned from schools, Romisch was out of a job unless he
could get his record expunged. Administrators at Southfield Christian
School supported his fight to stay in the classroom. But a Holland judge
turned down his request, and in late 2006, the state revoked his teaching
certificate.
The new laws were put in place after a 2004 auditor general's report found
that nearly 200 licensed school workers had criminal records the state
didn't know about, including convictions for sexual offenses.
Although prosecutors and school districts were supposed to notify state
education officials of teacher convictions, that didn't always happen,
especially if the charges were bargained down to lesser crimes. Many school
districts didn't do criminal background checks, at least not on staff hired
before 1993-94, allowing convicted teachers to keep administrators in the
dark.
Even teachers like Romisch whose past sexual convictions were known by state
officials could still appeal for recertification before a state hearing
panel, where decisions occasionally got made that kept such teachers on the
job.
That changed in 2005, when Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers pushed a
package of bills that required more scrutiny of teachers' backgrounds, with
state police and FBI background checks becoming mandatory for all school
employees.
Around the state, the number of teachers who had their licenses suspended,
revoked or otherwise affected for sexual misconduct rose significantly,
according to records obtained from the Michigan Department of Education by
The Associated Press through the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.
While only a handful of teachers were disciplined by the department for
sexual misconduct from 2001-03, the number jumped to 18 in 2005, the year
the new laws passed. In 2006, the number dropped to eight, the same number
as 2004. An additional eight teachers have faced discipline during the first
nine months of 2007, records show.
Ackley said the law lets state education officials spot teachers'
sex-related convictions through background checks even if prosecutors and
school districts haven't reported them.
"It's a valuable law because it takes any question of whether this person
should be teaching out of the equation and automatically revokes the
teaching certificate. It removes dangerous people from schools," he said.
Michigan's figures were gathered as part of a seven-month investigation in
which AP reporters sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states and
the District of Columbia.
Across the country, sexual misconduct allegations led states to take action
against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005. That figure
includes licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered.
Young people were victims in at least 69 percent of the cases, and the large
majority of those were students. Nine out of 10 of those abusive educators
were male. And at least 446 of the abusive teachers had multiple victims.
There are about 3 million public school teachers in the United States.
In Michigan, which has around 100,000 public school teachers, 30 of the 86
teacher misconduct cases where action was taken against a teacher's license
from 2001 through 2005 -- 26 percent -- involved sexual misconduct.
Twenty-eight of the 30 perpetrators were male. Students were the victims in
half of the 30 sexual misconduct cases, while eight cases involved other
minors.
The convictions ranged from indecent exposure to first-degree criminal
sexual conduct. Former Houghton Lake Middle School teacher DeVonna
Snowden-Crile served prison time for sexual conduct involving a 14-year-old
male student in 1998. James L. Cardon III, a former teacher at Morey
Charter School in Shepherd, remains in prison for sexually assaulting a
student in 2002. Snowden-Crile voluntarily surrendered her teaching
license, while the state suspended Cardon's.
In a broader look at state cases from 2001 through the first three quarters
of 2007, 13 of the 47 teachers disciplined by the state for sexual
misconduct lost their jobs after being convicted of possessing child
pornography, or after being caught in Internet sting operations.
Former Linden Community Schools science teacher Michael L. Phillips was one
of those whose teaching certificate was suspended after he got caught.
Phillips, 31, is serving a 4- to 20-year sentence for trying to engage in
sexual activity with a minor he targeted on the Internet in 2005.
Even teachers who have had sexual contact with teens legally at the age of
consent -- 16 and older in Michigan -- have been charged because state law
now says educators in positions of authority over teens can have no sexual
contact with any teen who is a student, regardless of the student's age.
That was the case with former Jenison High School band director Thomas
Weidner, who was sentenced to six months in jail in 2002 after pleading no
contest to a charge of using his teaching position to coerce a 16-year-old
male student into a sexual relationship.
Not everyone thinks the strict new laws are fair. Several of those who know
Romisch noted for his expungement hearing that it was wrong to take away his
livelihood after he received therapy, turned his life around and had no
further blemishes on his record.
Romisch, who now manages a business, said he's sorry about what happened,
but argues he has led an exemplary life since then. He's married, has four
children, lives in Bloomfield Hills and is a regular churchgoer.
"This was a long time ago. I made my life right," he said when asked about
the 1986 events.
Romisch, 47, said his expungement hearing last year was the first time he'd
seen the former student, Naomi Colella of Holland, in two decades.
"I was able for the first time to ask the gal to forgive me for what I've
done. ... I've prayed for her. My family has prayed for her," he said. "I'm
extremely heartbroken at this point. But I know with me, I've moved on."
Colella, now 36, still contends the former teacher had no business being
allowed in a classroom again after what he did to her.
A shy woman who cleans a restaurant before it opens so she can avoid people,
Colella said she was frightened when she started finding pornography in her
locker and detailed messages outlining what Romisch wanted to do to her.
"The whole reason I went to court was so he didn't get to keep his license,"
she said. "He committed a crime and he wasn't punished for it. It was just
kind of skipped over. Another child could have been hurt, and they didn't
speak up."