(The Center Square) – The expectations are not high headed into the Wisconsin Assembly hearing on teachers grooming students, and the state’s response.
Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, told News Talk 1130 WISN on Wednesday that she has not heard from State Superintendent Jill Underly, who has been invited to headline the hearing, and hasn’t heard much more from the state’s Department of Public Instruction.
“We got some answers. I think we’ll hear them again in the hearing,” Nedweski said of her discussions with DPI managers. “[They were] not necessarily acceptable answers.”
Nedweski is holding an informational hearing Thursday to get answers about the number of teachers who have voluntarily surrendered their teaching licenses to avoid DPI investigations into grooming or sexual misconduct charges.
The Cap Times recently broke a story that 200 teachers over five years were allowed to walk away, while sometimes being able to return to teaching a few years later.
Nedweski said that news made it clear that there is something wrong in how the Department of Public Instruction handled those cases and how it informed parents.
“I think that there is a complete and total lack of accountability on [DPI’s] part to explain why they haven’t been straightforward with the public as to what they’ve been doing with these cases,” Nedweski explained.
Underly’s only comments on the grooming investigation came Friday in an open letter. In it, she complained that The Cap Times piece ignored the limits DPI faced, but Underly said she supports any effort to update DPI’s “legal framework.”
“I welcome a long overdue discussion about the need to both modernize our licensing systems, and update existing statutes to clarify, broaden and deepen the limited statutory authority the DPI has in these serious matters,” Underly wrote.
Nedweski said that’s too little, too late.
“Where were these calls for updates to laws and systems long ago?” Nedweski asked. “Why all of a sudden now because there was a report by The Cap Times? That’ll be a question. If this was such a problem for you all along, why didn’t you ask for help before? If you needed money in the budget for updating systems for teacher licensure and to fund investigators for teacher misconduct, why didn’t you ask for it in your budget request earlier this year?”
Nedweski’s hearing before the Assembly Committee on Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency is set to begin at 11am on Thursday.
