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Some Collaborative for Educational Services Educators Were Not Properly Licensed To Teach the Subjects for Which They Were Employed.

18 CES educators did not have DESE-issued licenses or waivers for the subjects and/or grades for which they were contracted to teach.

Table of Contents

Overview

During our audit period, 4 of the 60 educators in our sample did not have licenses or waivers from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) while employed by the Collaborative for Educational Services (CES). Two of these 4 individuals did not receive approved waivers before beginning their employment, and 2 did not have either a license or a waiver for the duration of their employment. Additionally, CES did not ensure that all its educators had the required licenses or waivers to teach the subjects for which they were hired. Educators assigned to grades and/or subjects for which they do not have appropriate licenses or waivers may not be qualified to teach those grades and/or subjects. This may result in the students receiving a lesser quality of education than they would receive from educators with licenses or waivers.

Specifically, 18 of the 60 CES educators in our sample did not have licenses or waivers issued by DESE for the subjects and/or grades for which they were employed, according to their employment contracts and letters of employment. This occurred for periods of 55 to 507 days, as shown below. In some instances, the employment contracts lacked sufficient details and requirements related to the educators’ contracted positions or assignments.

Educators’ Time without Licenses/Waivers

Number of Days

Number of Educators

Percentage of Audit Period Spent Teaching without a License or Waiver

55

1

9%

76

1

12%

160

1

25%

195

1

31%

216

1

34%

269

1

42%

285

2

45%

289

1

45%

291

1

46%

496

1

78%

498

3

78%

503

3

79%

507

1

79%

 

Additionally, the credentials (licenses or waivers) of 13 educators from our sample of 60 did not correspond to the teaching assignment information reported to DESE by CES in the Education Personnel Information Management System (EPIMS). This included instances where CES recorded educators’ assignment information (position, subject, and/or grade) incorrectly in EPIMS and this information did not accurately reflect their actual teaching assignments. There were also instances where CES correctly recorded educators’ assignment information, but they did not have a license or waiver issued by DESE for the subjects and/or grades for which they were employed, according to the assignment information in EPIMS.

DESE uses EPIMS data to make policy and program decisions, and because CES incorrectly recorded some educators’ credentials incorrectly in EPIMS, DESE may not have accurate information about CES’s educators. Additionally, because CES assigned educators to grades or subjects for which they did not possess the appropriate license or waiver, students may have received a lower quality of education than they would have received from educators with the appropriate licenses or waivers.

Authoritative Guidance

According to Section 4E of Chapter 40 of the Massachusetts General Laws,

No person shall be eligible for employment by the education collaborative . . . unless the person has been granted a [license] by the commissioner . . . or an approval . . . by the board of elementary and secondary education . . . with respect to the type of position for which the person seeks employment.

In addition, Section 38G of Chapter 71 of the General Laws requires each license to be for the type of position in which the license-holder is employed.

Section 7.15(13)(a) of Title 603 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations (CMR) allows for a temporary waiver of the licensing requirement:

The Commissioner may exempt a district for any one school year from the requirement to employ licensed or certified personnel in accordance with M.G.L. c. 71, § 38G. The Commissioner may deem a district to have a great hardship in securing licensed or certified personnel for the purposes of M.G.L. c. 71, § 38G upon request of a superintendent and demonstration to the Commissioner that the district has made a good-faith effort to hire licensed or certified personnel, and has been unable to find a licensed or certified candidate who is qualified for the position.

Reasons for Issues

CES does not have internal controls to ensure that the educators it hires have valid licenses or waivers to work in the positions for which they are hired. CES also does not have policies and procedures regarding consistently documenting all details and requirements in its employment contracts and letters of employment. It also lacks controls to ensure that educators’ credentials correspond to their teaching assignment information in EPIMS.

Recommendations

  1. CES should develop internal controls to ensure that its educators have the required licenses or waivers to work in the positions for which they are hired.
  2. CES should implement policies and procedures regarding documenting consistent details and requirements in its employment contracts and letters of employment.
  3. CES should develop internal controls to ensure that its educators’ credentials correspond to their teaching assignment information in EPIMS.

Auditee’s Response

Many of the CES educators included in the Auditor’s sample work in institutional settings, where teaching “out-of- field” is both unrestricted as the Auditor indicates, and part of the therapeutic design of the setting. In these settings, teachers provide instruction to very small groups of youth (class sizes of 4 on average) in various grades (including postsecondary), ages, and stages of their educational progress in one classroom in therapeutic treatment programs that generally house up to 10 youth at any given time. CES therefore seeks to hire teachers who hold a proper license or waiver within at least one of the subject areas and grade spans they will be assigned to teach and provides extensive ongoing training and curricular resources to support its educators to successfully teach “out-of-field.” This is consistent with the DYS and DESE interpretations of the requirements for this program.

Because CES and the state agencies who contract with us for these services recognize that teaching “out-of-field” is an integral part of the design of educational programming for institutional settings, CES and its funders have established a robust professional development system that includes up to 7 days of professional development each year, two of which are content focused and thereby intended to support teachers in teaching outside of their field, and an instructional coaching model that provides immersive on-the-job training and mentoring for teachers to be successful in and outside of their field and in these unique therapeutic learning environments. CES provides both rotational coaching and coaching residencies, and coaches also facilitate multiple content based learning teams each year. Teachers also access extensive curricular materials to support teaching, aligned with the most current Massachusetts State Curriculum Frameworks, and foundational instructional guides support teachers’ planning in each core content area.

CES has historically provided notification of these additional teaching duties to its educators through its contracts and/or employment offers. The collective bargaining agreement outlines the required language for use in employment contracts.

CES will review and revise in its employment contracts and letters of employment to ensure they do not imply a specific license is required, and that they document consistent details and requirements.

With regard to the Education Personnel Information Management System (EPIMS): in May of 2017, CES sought and followed guidance from [DESE’s] Data Collection Department on changes to state reporting requirements for educational collaboratives. We acted in accordance with this guidance and utilized classification codes approved by [DESE] for Collaboratives when documenting in EPIMS.

CES will seek additional guidance from [DESE] on how to appropriately code our workforce and share the auditor’s concerns in an effort to finalize the correct coding for employees working in special education institutional settings contracted under state contracts with different restrictions and implement internal controls necessary to comply with the guidance provided.

CES Human Resources Department will coordinate a review and identify uniform procedures and internal controls for monitoring required licenses, application for waivers, and EPIMS data.

Post-Audit Period Actions for Finding 1

Waivers: CES has worked with [DESE] to streamline the waiver process for teachers working in institutional settings, and we will not extend a contract for a permanent teaching position to an unlicensed teacher until we have an approved waiver on file. CES will build on this process across the agency for our other programs.

Auditor’s Reply

As noted above, Section 4E of Chapter 40 of the General Laws prohibits collaboratives from hiring individuals to teach if they have not been granted a license or temporary waiver by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Further, the “Professional Standards for Teachers” section of CES’s Employee Handbook states,

All teachers employed by CES are subject to the same professional standards, approval criteria, and licensure/re-licensure requirements as teachers employed by a local school system. All CES teachers must be highly qualified in the subjects they are teaching.

Despite this, during our audit period, CES hired at least four educators who did not possess a license or approved waiver when they were hired. Two of them were unlicensed and received a waiver after they were hired by CES, and two did not possess a license or obtain an approved waiver at any time while employed by CES. None of these four individuals should have been hired by CES.

Additionally, we found numerous instances where CES educators taught in positions for which they were not hired and did not possess the appropriate licensure for the subject/s. As detailed above, 18 of the 60 CES educators in our sample did not have licenses or waivers issued by DESE for the subjects and/or grades for which they were employed. We acknowledge that DESE’s regulations for out-of-field teaching do not apply to CES. However, these regulations recognize that teaching out of field may negatively affect the quality of education; therefore, they limit the percentage of an educator’s time that the educator can teach out of field. For this reason, we believe that regardless of the teaching model CES uses, the collaborative should take whatever measures it can take to minimize out-of-field teaching and ensure that its educators teach the subjects for which they were hired and are properly licensed. Although we believe that it is a good business practice for CES to provide ongoing training and support to educators who teach out of field, we do not believe this ensures that CES’s students will receive the same quality of educational services that properly licensed educators can provide.

In its response, CES states,

CES . . . followed guidance from [DESE’s] Data Collection Department on changes to state reporting requirements for educational collaboratives. We acted in accordance with this guidance and utilized classification codes approved by [DESE] for Collaboratives when documenting in EPIMS.

However, as noted above, we found a number of errors in the information CES recorded in EPIMS. For example, the credentials (licenses or waivers) of 13 educators from our sample of 60 did not correspond to the teaching assignment information that CES reported to DESE in EPIMS. This included instances where CES recorded educators’ assignment information (position, subject, and/or grade) incorrectly in EPIMS and this information did not accurately reflect their actual teaching assignments. Therefore, CES needs to improve its internal controls over this activity to ensure that its educators’ credentials correspond to their teaching assignment information in EPIMS.

Based on its response, CES is taking measures to address our concerns on this matter.

Date published: July 22, 2021

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