Eight Mississippi educators have surrendered their licenses after being notified that they had violated a state standard against sexual misconduct with students.
A ninth educator’s license has been revoked, and 11 more cases are pending, Cindy Coon, director of licensure for the state Department of Education, told The Clarion-Ledger.
She said that in 2010, the department acted in eight such cases, only one of which was reported by a school district.
“It is working,” Coon said. “And we are definitely following up on these (reports) as quickly as we get them.”
All 20 cases last year resulted from reports sent by school districts since a new state law went into effect in April. A month earlier, the state Board of Education approved an ethics code and conduct standards for teachers.
The new law works better than the old one for several reasons, said Jim Keith, who has been practicing education law for about 30 years.
School districts can let employees resign instead of being fired, but they must still send the information to the state Department of Education to decide whether the license should be revoked, he said.
“In the past, the only mandatory report was to the district attorney,” Keith said. Now the report goes not
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