Proposed bill seeks to root out teacher sex offenders

Frankfort, Ky (WTVQ): A representative is looking to push ‘House Bill 275.’  that would require more thorough background checks for teachers. A similar proposal passed the house last year, but was never brought to the Senate floor.

Representative James Tipton says he wants to get it passed this session, in order to bring more awareness to the issue of sexual misconduct.

Tipton says this new bill passed a house committee Tuesday morning. He says the change he made is that if a teacher is found to be innocent of allegations there would be no permanent record of it. “Once an investigation has begun it has to be completed. We’ve been made aware that too many times. That something like this comes up the teacher just resigns and leaves that school district,” Tipton said.

In Lexington, Kevin Lentz an English teacher from Henry Clay High School was officially fired this week. Court records show he pled guilty to child pornography charges in November. According to his arrest citation, Lentz sent a 9-year-old boy in New Hampshire explicit images and then asked the child to delete those images. Lentz had worked for Fayette County Public Schools for nearly 20 years.

Representative Tipton says the goal is to prevent these individuals from getting into the school system. “If they’ve had a past history of this, and also to have a timely process to make sure allegations are taken seriously and investigated,” he said.

In this bill when a teacher applies, the person must share the former schools they’ve worked at, requiring the school to contact any former schools to verify if there had been any issues in the past. The bill would then require a background check every five years after the teacher gets hired.

Tipton says he had a friend’s daughter who had a teacher, who allegedly made inappropriate sexual advances towards the young girl. “The family discovered the same thing had happened in a joining school district,” he said. “In that situation that teacher had just resigned quietly, left, nothing came of it from that. Then, they got a job at this school district where their daughter attended.”

This is why Tipton stresses the importance of transparency, to protect vulnerable children. Tipton says In Kentucky each year there’s more than 150 allegations made. Making it the number one reason a teacher’s license is taken away. “We’re aware of the reported incidents. But I fear there are a lot of situations that are never reported,” he said.

Tipton says if the legislation passes the Kentucky department of Education would require training videos on the matter, requiring participation from every teacher starting in the 2025 to 2026 school year as well as every five years after.