Yesterday the House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 34, legislation that amends the Professional Educator Discipline Act to establish a comprehensive system to be used to investigate and discipline professional educators for misconduct. The bill expands the bases for discipline to include founded and indicated reports of child abuse as well as “grooming” behaviors such as sending a student sexually explicit text messages; shortens the time period for reporting to the Pennsylvania Department of Education; requires an educator arrested, indicted for, or convicted of certain crimes to report the action to the employing school within 72 hours; prohibits schools from entering into confidential settlement agreements that interfere with the entity’s mandatory reporting; and eliminates the current statute of limitations for the filing of misconduct complaints. Senate Bill 34 will now return to the Senate for a concurrence vote on House amendments made earlier to the bill.

Source: PSBA School Leader News Daily EDition, Dec. 10, 2013.