Los Angeles Unified would create a team of professional investigators to handle serious misconduct complaints against teachers as part of a new plan to overhaul the district's disciplinary process, which has been criticized as costly, unwieldy and unfair.
Set for a vote on April 16, the resolution by school board member Tamar Galatzan would take investigations of alleged physical or sexual abuse away from principals and put them into the hands of professionals. The investigations would involve employees cleared of any crime by police but still suspected of violating state or district codes of conduct.
"Some of the people who are tasked with doing investigations of suspected child abuse or sexual misconduct don't have the level of training to be able to handle them," said Galatzan, who is also a prosecutor for the City Attorney's Office. "Administrators are trained to ferret out allegations of cheating, but when it comes to