In its first crack at implementing a new law aimed at strengthening student safety protections, the Illinois State Board of Education has suspended the licenses of nearly 50 educators across the state charged with sex crimes, violent felonies or certain drug offenses, the agency said.

ISBE began suspending the licenses of eligible educators this month, about six weeks after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed Senate Bill 456 into law. As of Friday, the agency had suspended at least 45 licensees, ISBE spokeswoman Jackie Matthews said.

The school employees whose licenses were suspended under the law include teachers, coaches and administrators from about two dozen urban, suburban and rural districts across the state — about half of whom are from Cook County and its collar counties.

Many resigned from their school districts or were terminated shortly after being arrested, while others remain employed but out on leave.

They include a former teacher’s aide in Northfield, a softball coach in Harvey, a music teacher in Beecher, a dean in Chicago, a kindergarten teacher in Aurora and an administrative assistant in Waukegan, according to a list obtained by the Daily Southtown and Aurora Beacon-News.

Without a valid educator license, these individuals would be barred from working as paraprofessionals, teachers or academic administrators in Illinois public schools as their criminal cases proceed. If acquitted of their charges, the educators’ licenses would be reinstated.

Phillip Rogers, executive director of the National Association for State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, said the School Code changes were a step in the right direction.

“It’s closing a loophole, as far as I can see,” said Rogers, whose organization represents state boards and commissions across the country that are responsible for the preparation, licensure and discipline of professional educators.

Going forward, the organization’s nationwide database that tracks disciplinary actions against educators’ licenses will include Illinois educators whose licenses are suspended under the new law, which Rogers said could prevent them from getting hired in other states while their criminal cases are pending.

Though participation in the database is voluntary, districts and state education agencies that subscribe — including ISBE — use it to make hiring decisions, he said.

Previously, ISBE could only take immediate action against an educator’s license upon criminal conviction, meaning someone accused of murder or sexually abusing children could remain licensed during the pendency of their potentially yearslong case.

While districts typically suspend or move to terminate educators charged in such cases, nothing prevents such educators from applying for a job in another district where officials may be unaware of their circumstances.

Because an educator with a pending criminal case would likely remain licensed and able to pass mandatory fingerprint-based state and federal background checks as long as they had no prior criminal history, finding a job elsewhere would not be out of the question.

In one recent example, a Joliet middle school teacher arrested on attempted murder charges in 2017 found work in two other districts while free on $500,000 bond.

Andres Rodriguez didn’t last long in either district — officials in both Cicero School District 99 and Lyons School District 103 said they placed the veteran educator on leave after becoming aware of his pending criminal case — but he likely wouldn’t have been hired at all had the new law been in effect at the time.

An educator with a pending attempted murder case can pass a criminal background check and even a lax reference check, but it’s unlikely a public school district would hire someone without a valid license.

Algonquin-based Community Unit School District 300 superintendent Fred Heid, whose district has had two educators — substitute teacher, coach and paraeducator Carlos Bedoya and teacher Charles Brieger — charged with sexually assaulting and abusing children in recent years, said licensure is the first thing districts check when screening prospective employees.

He called the new law a good first step toward protecting student safety and said suspending the licenses of educators charged with certain crimes would likely prevent them from resurfacing in other districts as their cases progress.

“It really does serve as an act to protect other districts in the state or even surrounding states,” Heid said.

Most school officials interviewed were supportive of the new law, but attorneys for some of the teachers charged took issue with a law they said appeared to turn the presumption of innocence on its head.

“This person who has not had their day in court, has not been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, is now being punished before anything even happens in court,” said Alana De Leon, one of the attorneys representing former Waukegan school employee Gabriel Valadez, who is charged with grooming and sexually abusing a young girl.

She declined to comment on Valadez’s case beyond restating the not guilty plea he entered in court.

Gal Pissetzky, an attorney for former East Aurora kindergarten teacher Juan Avendano who is charged with sexual assault and abuse, said suspending an educator’s license based on accusations alone is antithetical to due process and the Constitution.

“I think that’s a backward system,” said Pissetzky, who declined to discuss Avendano’s case, specifically, but said he was “absolutely innocent” of the charges.

Brian Stevens, an attorney for Bedoya, who was convicted in August on eight counts of predatory criminal sexual assault and still has additional charges pending, also raised concerns about the law’s fairness.

“If people are truly innocent until proven guilty, and they’re supposed to have that presumption, how do you really have that presumption if someone can make an allegation without having a judge or a jury decide the merits of the case? And then be suspended and not able to work?” Stevens said, adding that he felt his client’s 112-year sentence was “extremely harsh,” while acknowledging the judge had been bound somewhat by legal sentencing guidelines.

The attorney for Luis Mora, another former East Aurora teacher accused of sexually abusing children, and the attorneys for Rodriguez and Brieger all either declined comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

In addition to providing ISBE the statutory authority to suspend an educator’s license immediately if they’re charged with certain offenses defined in Section 21B-80 of the School Code, the new law also institutes numerous other protections intended to enhance student safety.

Among those protections are a requirement that school districts review all existing policies and procedures concerning sexual abuse investigations every two years; a requirement that districts perform background checks of existing employees every five years; an overhaul of the way districts conduct child sexual abuse probes by involving Children’s Advocacy Centers to perform “developmentally appropriate” investigations; and the creation of a diverse statewide task force to review best practices for addressing abuse and providing support to students who have suffered abuse.

Any laws that serve to ensure the adults who work in schools are carefully screened and held to certain ethical standards are a positive, said Beecher School District 200U superintendent Brad Cox, whose district had one former employee — James Vidmar — whose license ISBE recently suspended.

But no system is perfect, he said.

The student safety protections added recently to the School Code would likely not have prevented the majority of educators whose licenses were recently suspended from being hired in the first place and won’t prevent educators who are investigated for misconduct but not charged criminally from moving between districts in the future, Cox said.

Even Valadez, who left his job at Chicago Public Schools in 2017 while under investigation for allegedly engaging in grooming behavior with a student,would not necessarily have been flagged had the new law been in place when he applied for a job in Waukegan School District 60 because he had not been criminally charged at that point.

CPS, which like all districts is required by law to notify ISBE if officials have “reasonable cause” to believe an educator has committed an intentional act of abuse or neglect against a child, did contact the state board in Valadez’s case. Such notifications can trigger an investigation that may result in license suspension or revocation, but which sometimes take years to conduct and often are paused if police or the Department of Children and Family Services open their own investigations.

“The loophole that exists as I see it is when something happens and there aren’t charges that are brought,” Cox said. “The state doesn’t have the authority to (immediately) revoke licenses and an employee can just move from district to district without consequence.”

State Rep. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, acknowledged during the bill’s third House reading in May that Illinois still had a ways to go to address its endemic educator abuse issues.

“We’ve just really begun the process of cleaning up what we found to be systemic problems, not only in the Chicago Public Schools system with regard to sexual abuse, but, you know, frankly, statewide there are problems,” said Reick, one of the bipartisan bill’s numerous co-sponsors. “But the steps that we’re taking with this bill, I believe, will go a long way toward remedying a problem that we found had existed for decades.”

ISBE’s legislative agenda for the 2020 Spring Session, which the board approved Oct. 16, includes additional proposed changes to the School Code that would further enhance student safety protections.

One would require the local state’s attorney to notify ISBE when charges are filed against someone who holds an educator license. Another would require regional offices of education and intermediate service centers to submit “rap backs” — updated background checks on employees — to ISBE, notify the educator’s employer and update the state’s online educator licensure system within 10 days of receiving the results of the rap back.

At least 22 of the 45 Illinois educators whose licenses ISBE suspended in its first pass worked in the Chicagoland area.

CPS, the largest district in the state and second largest in the country, had seven such educators — nearly twice as many as any other Illinois district.

Six are charged with sex or sex-related crimes against children, while the seventh faces first-degree murder charges in the fatal beating of a Dolton man.

A CPS spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the new law or the district teachers whose licenses ISBE suspended.

Joliet School District 86, the elementary district that employed Rodriguez, has four educators whose licenses ISBE suspended.

In addition to Rodriguez, the state board of education identified two teachers charged with sex crimes against children and one accused of murdering his wife, a special education teacher in the district.

Joliet schools spokeswoman Sandy Zalewski said it was “definitely a coincidence” that four district teachers had been charged with serious crimes since 2015 and said the district had no intention of modifying its hiring practices as a result.

“We did thorough state-mandated police and FBI background checks (for all four teachers), checked both personal and professional references and it all came back clear,” she said.

Only one of the Joliet District 86 teachers identified by ISBE is still employed by the district, Zalewski said.

Michael Kazecki, a middle school language arts teacher charged last year with beating his wife to death, was placed on paid leave shortly after his arrest in August 2018, she said. District officials recently stopped paying Kazecki and approved a notice to remedy after ISBE suspended his license on Oct. 2, Zalewski said.

His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The state board of education also suspended the licenses of educators in eight other districts in the Chicagoland area.

Two educators each from East Aurora School District 131, Thornton Township High School District 205 and CUSD 300 had their licenses suspended, while single educators at Waukegan School District 60, Beecher School District 200U, Sunset Ridge School District 29 in Northfield, Community High School District 155 in McHenry County and the Archdiocese of Chicago also had their licenses suspended.

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