JEFFERSON CITY – The state board of education on Tuesday suspended the license of a Hazelwood preschool teacher who broke her contract when she resigned last year.
Asueleni Deloney’s Missouri teaching certificate is suspended for one year, the board voted at its monthly meeting.
Deloney resigned from Jana Elementary in Florissant on Aug. 30 after signing a contract the previous April for the 2022-2023 school year. The Hazelwood school district did not release her from her contract because they were unable to hire a replacement, according to state records.
At a state hearing in March, Deloney said she resigned because she was struggling financially after eight years as a teacher in the Hazelwood district. A union representative warned him that “it might be unpleasant because they need teachers in the classroom,” Deloney said during the hearing.
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The transcript of the hearing indicates that Deloney may have taken a teaching job in Illinois, where he was issued a license in May 2022 for early childhood education.
The report on Deloney’s case does not mention questions about radioactive contamination at Jana Elementary first raised by parents in the summer of 2022. The school sits on the Coldwater Creek floodplain, which became contaminated from the 1940s with waste from the production of atomic weapons.
An independent report found radioactive contamination in dust and dirt samples taken on August 15 from inside and outside the school.
The Hazelwood School Board closed the school in October, sending students and staff to several other elementary schools. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of cleaning the creek, and a company from St. Charles have since said that Jana is radiologically safe.
School districts have increasingly tried to discipline teachers who break contracts as staff shortages have worsened since the pandemic. A 2016 Missouri law allows the state board to discipline teachers who void their contracts.
A record 11 teachers faced disciplinary action related to employment contracts in the 2022-2023 school year. according to the Springfield News-Leader. In most cases, school boards rejected teachers’ resignations while they were under contract.
The state board of education voted on three of the cases Tuesday. The board suspended Jordan York’s license for a year after the English teacher left the Independence school district last August for “family matters” and failed to pay a fine to break his contract, state records show .
The board voted against disciplining a Spanish teacher who resigned from the Hancock Place School District in south St. Louis after signing a one-year contract.
Veronica Delgado resigned in September after being threatened by students several times and suffering from severe anxiety. The Hancock Place board rejected the resignation and referred the matter to the state board. The position was never filled at Hancock Place, and some classes were taught virtually after Delgado’s resignation.
Seeking discipline for teachers who break their contracts is counterproductive and burdensome, Mark Jones of the Missouri National Education Association told the News-Leader.
“It doesn’t incentivize (teachers) to try to find a new school or situation that’s a better fit for them when they can basically lose their livelihood because months after signing a contract they realize they might have to make a different decision or work in a different environment,” Jones told the paper. “This is creating a very strange system … and something that works against everything we say our values are, which is to try to keep people in the profession and respect them as educators.”
The state teacher shortage came up several times during Tuesday’s board meeting.
Nearly 20 percent of teaching and administrator positions at Riverview Gardens are vacant, Superintendent Joylynn Pruitt-Adams told the board during an update on the provisionally accredited district.
In 2022-2023, Lewis and Clark Elementary had no certified teachers, with substitutes covering all core subjects. Riverview Gardens Middle School had one certified math teacher, Pruitt-Adams said.
School librarians in Missouri are pulling books off their shelves as they face the potential for criminal charges under a new state law that passed in late August 2022.
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