BILL AIMS TO PROMOTE EMPLOYEE CODES OF CONDUCT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

With BC-CNS-Schools-Conduct-Box

By DANIEL RAVEN
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX (Wednesday, April 2) _ School employees should have a clear idea of what constitutes unprofessional or immoral conduct so students, parents and the teachers themselves can be protected, two lawmakers say.

Rep. Doug Clark, R-Anthem, and Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, are primary sponsors of a measure that would charge the State Board of Education with creating guidelines defining such conduct.

Public school districts and charter schools would have a chance to adopt the guidelines as-is or amend them to meet their needs. Once adopted, the code of conduct would have to be posted online and signed off on by employees.

Clark and Gray’s bill, SB 1341, has already earned Senate approval and moved through the House Education K-12 Committee on Wednesday by a 6-2 vote.

“I want teachers to be fully informed of the consequences of not abiding by the code of conduct,” Gray said.

Gray said conversations she’s had with teachers have shown her that most school employees don’t understand the rules they must abide by. She said requiring workers and educators to read a code of conduct and pledge compliance would ultimately benefit everyone.

“I think it would raise the bar of trust and performance,” Clark said. “When somebody knows what their behavioral expectations are, they’re more apt to not do those things they shouldn’t do.”

Rep. Jackie Thrasher, D-Glendale, who is an elementary school music teacher, said the bill is unnecessary and intrudes upon local control.

“What I’m against is having a statewide code of conduct for all schools and this, to me, opens the door for that,” Thrasher said.

Michael Smith, a spokesman for Arizona School Administrators, said the bill’s provisions would be harder to implement than its sponsors realize.

“I’m troubled by the structure of this, especially the part about providing descriptions of immoral conduct,” Smith said.

Smith said it would be impossible to compile a list of all inappropriate behavior and that disciplinary action taken as a consequence of actions left off the list could be reasonably protested.

Smith also objected to the fact that the bill makes no mention of updates to the list of prohibited conduct.

Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, gave the bill his tentative approval but said he wouldn’t vote for the bill on the floor unless it was amended to prevent use of the list in litigation.

Clark said the bill will be amended to prevent such a scenario.

“We don’t want somebody who does go ahead and establish a policy to then be slapped on the wrist for possibly having excluded something the state would recommend or someone else would recommend as being policy,” Clark said.