State and Regional News

MONTGOMERY — Alabama education officials have failed to revoke the teaching certificates of four convicted sex offenders because officials say the men could not be found for a hearing required to start the process.

But all four men — and their addresses — are listed on the Web sites of the Alabama Department of Public Safety and the National Sex Offender Registry.

Their profiles can easily be found with a quick name search and a couple clicks of a computer mouse.

"Unfortunately, it's not uncommon in government to find left hands and right hands that don't know what each other are doing," Attorney General Troy King said.

Superintendent Joe Morton, responding to inquiries by The Associated Press, said the DPS site and registry had been overlooked but will be used in the future to go after the teaching certificates of sex offenders. Offenders are required to report their addresses to DPS officials every six months. The department said it verifies the information and updates the registry as needed.

"That's a good tool and if we're not fully utilizing it, we should," Morton said in a recent interview.

Officials revoked the teaching certificates of about 30 teachers in Alabama from 2001-2005 due to allegations of sexual misconduct, including cases involving students. It is not clear how many of those teachers were convicted of criminal acts.

Morton and department of education attorney Larry Craven argue that suspending a certificate serves the same purpose as revoking it: keeping a sex offender out of Alabama classrooms. It's easier for the state to suspend an educator's license than to revoke it and officials say there's no harm in just letting the certificates expire.

"We have blocked them from employment in public schools," Morton said. "They can't work — the suspension does that. So if you were speaking metaphorically, you'd say 'Just how dead do you want to be?"

Officials must hold a hearing before revoking an educator's license. Morton and Craven say the law does not require them to go beyond sending a hearing notice to the last known address of a sex offender. If the offender has moved, they say there's no legal mandate to look for them, and no hearing can be held.

For some Alabama parents, these arguments miss the point: They say the licenses should be revoked.

"'Just as good' is only good in horseshoes. When you're dealing with children's lives, 'just as good' is not adequate," Alabama Parent and Teacher Association president Laurie McCaulley said.

Many states are upgrading their efforts to root out sex offenders in the teaching ranks.

A nationwide Associated Press investigation, published in October, found 2,570 educators across the nation lost their teaching credentials or were otherwise sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Experts who track sexual abuse say the problem is bigger than the numbers suggest. Underreporting is common, they say, because victims often are ashamed and accusations are hard to prove.

Morton and Craven argued that trying to revoke the teaching certificates of convicted sex offenders might require victims to testify again.

"Where's the humanity in that?" Morton said.

King said any good lawyer should be able to avoid such a situation by providing a certified copy of the conviction. "You don't have to retry the case and call witnesses," he said.

Pia Knigge, an assistant professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Auburn University Montgomery, criticized education officials for taking an "it's not my job" attitude to avoid the extra effort needed to revoke the licenses of sex offenders.

"You would think that in this regard, it would be really in the public interest since we're talking about teachers and children's welfare," Knigge said.

Joyce Miller, a counselor for the Alabama advocacy group Victims of Crime and Leniency, agrees.

"When it comes across their desks that this person has been charged with a sex abuse case, I think it's their obligation to follow through and see that it's revoked," she said. "You don't just say 'It's not my job' because that way it never gets done. It should be the education department's job."

Some who work with children say that suspending the license of a sex offender is enough.

Jannah Bailey, executive director of Child Protect in Montgomery, said suspensions send up a big red flag to hiring personnel.

"I think if there were no other precautions that were being made, then I'd be concerned," Bailey said. "There are other safeguards out there."

Craven said the department notifies a national database when a teacher's certification is flagged with a suspension or other negative action.

But McCaully said that's not good enough. She said Alabama PTA board members may seek passage of a law to make sure certificates are revoked.

"I think most parents would be alarmed to know that was not happening," she said.