The U.S. Department of Education has given state education officials an allowance to correct a Kent School District clerical error in 2012 that put the highly qualified status of 177 teachers in question.
The Department of Education announced on Wednesday afternoon that it would grant a one-time exception to allow the state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to amend the records of the affected employees, who faced the prospect of having to take an exam to prove their highly qualified status.
The allowance will let OSPI review the teachers’ highly qualified status and, if approved, reinstate it without requiring the teachers to take the exam.
The clerical error occurred when a school district employee incorrectly marked 181 teachers’ files to show that they had taken a state test to prove their highly qualified status. Four of those teachers have since left the district. The teachers’ files should have indicated they had been grandfathered in using an evaluation form. Prior to 2002, teachers did not have to take an exam to show their highly qualified status.
The district discovered the error at the end of the school year, district spokesman Chris Loftis said.
“One of our teachers … was going to another school district to teach and needed the verification of her highly qualified status, and when that was researched at the state level it was found it was not there,” Loftis said. “Our HR (human resources) department did an internal audit and found 181 mistakes were made in a batch of those in 2012.”
When the district contacted OSPI after discovering the error, it was told the only option was for the teachers to pass a content specific exam to show they were highly qualified in their subject area. State Superintendent Randy Dorn reached out to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to find a solution.
If the allowance had not been granted, 72 of the affected teachers would have had until Aug. 31 the first day of school, to pass the test, since they teach Title 1 core subjects.
Under federal law, educators who teach core classes, such as math, reading or writing, at Title 1 schools are required to have highly qualified status. Other teachers are encouraged by the district to obtain the rating.
“Our goal is for every teacher in the district to be highly qualified when people come in, and when we hire them we set them on a pathway to do that in the first couple of years to get to that status where they are recognized as such,” Loftis said.
The district has 21 Title 1 schools, which have high poverty rates, and receive federal funding to serve vulnerable student populations.
April Johns, a second-grade teacher at Emerald Park Elementary, one of the district’s Title 1 schools, received a certified letter from the district on Monday informing her she was one of the affected teachers.
“I heard the report on the news and knew there were approximately 200 teachers who were involved, and I thought,’I hope it’s not me. I hope it’s not me,'” Johns said.
She said she was caught off guard by the prospect of taking the exam.
“I haven’t had high school or college math in a number of years, so this is something that I am not just going to be able to sit down and take,” she said. “I am going to have to do a lot of studying to prepare for it.”
The district scheduled a seminar for Wednesday morning to help the teachers prepare for the exam, but it was canceled Tuesday afternoon when the district learned federal officials were working to remedy the situation.
Johns said the situation was frustrating.
“It is nothing that we (the teachers) did,” she said. “It is something that they (the district) did and this isn’t a mistake for a few teachers. … The issue is that this is a surprise attack basically. You get a certified letter. It is three weeks away from the beginning of school. It is supposed to be your down time. It is supposed to be your vacation time. You’re also trying to set up your classroom. We have a new reading curriculum. There are other things you want to be focused on.”
Johns, who has taught in the district for seven years, said this is not the first error the district has made. She said she had issues with her seniority and insurance and her colleagues have had problems with paperwork.
“It is completely frustrating and disappointing that they continue to make mistakes,” she said.
Christie Padilla, president of the Kent Education Association, said high turnover at the district’s administration office is part of the problem. Loftis said none of the current employees in the district’s human resources office worked there in 2012.
“If we could attract and retain people at the district level, that would be extremely helpful,” Padilla said.
Padilla said she hopes the district can put the error behind it and focus on educating students.
“It is an unforgivable mistake but hopefully we can move forward after this is over,” she said.
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