SB 999

Under this bill, if the Department of Public Instruction investigates an individual who holds a license issued by DPI 1) for immoral conduct or 2) because DPI receives a report that the licensee has been dismissed or their employment contract has not been renewed based in whole or in part on evidence that the licensee engaged in immoral conduct, DPI is prohibited from ending the investigation without a determination about whether to proceed with revocation or terminating a subsequent revocation hearing unless the licensee permanently surrenders the license and waives the licensee’s appeal rights related to the investigation and revocation hearing. Additionally, if a licensee surrenders a license under these circumstances, DPI must post on its website the name of the licensee, that the license is surrendered permanently, and that the surrender occurred during an investigation related to immoral conduct. With regard to a license, the bill defines “surrender” as voluntarily relinquishing a license for an amount of time.

Under current law, during an investigation of a licensee, DPI must keep all information related to the investigation confidential, except DPI must post on its website the name of the individual who is being investigated. Upon completion of the investigation, DPI’s records related to the investigation are subject to open records laws. Under the bill, if the result of a completed investigation of a licensee for immoral conduct is revocation or permanent surrender, DPI must provide records related to the investigation by no later than 14 days after receiving an open records request for the records. Additionally, the bill expressly states that the open records exception for certain information in an individual’s personnel file does not apply to a request made to DPI for these records.

Lastly, the bill prohibits the state superintendent of public instruction from entering into any agreement that 1) has the effect of suppressing or destroying information related to an investigation of immoral conduct by a licensee or 2) requires the state superintendent or DPI to expunge or keep confidential information about substantiated allegations or findings of immoral conduct by a licensee.