Loveless aims to protect Oklahoma school children

Senator Kyle Loveless (R-Oklahoma City) says there have nearly 40 cases of district hopping in the last two years. To him it's a serious loophole that's need to tied up immediately. The loophole works something like this, let's say you are a teacher in Choctaw and get in trouble for sexting with a student, but agree to resign if the parents don't press charges, you could then relocate to Norman and find work again as teacher and no one would know your past. "If no charges are pressed and the local D.A. doesn't know then the perpetrator moves onto another school district and starts reoffending," Senator Loveless said. But Senator Loveless says his legislation would make it impossible to just pack up and move if something inappropriate happens between a student and a teacher. Especially during the statewide teacher shortage almost all school districts are experiencing. "If you are a superintendent and you have a shortage of teachers in your classroom and person a shows up with no criminal background and you can't discuss with the previous district why there fired or the reason they left," Senator Loveless said. And Loveless's bill would create a system where every incident would be reported to the State Board of Education for further investigation to decide if the teacher gets to keep their license. Tuesday the bill which passed the full Senate didn't make it past the House Subcommittee and the deadline is April 10th. "It is a statewide systematic problem that we need to fix," Senator Loveless said. Fox 25 reached out to several of the House Subcommittee members for a comment but so far none of our calls have been returned.