Senate Bill 2188 Summary

• Establishes grounds for denying teacher and administrator licenses, including lack of qualifications, physical/mental disability, active substance addiction, revocation/suspension in another state, fraud, felony or sex offense convictions, and probation or post-release supervision for felony or sex offenses.

• Creates procedures for license reinstatement allowing petitions after one year from revocation/surrender or after half the suspended time has elapsed (whichever is greater), with automatic reinstatement option for suspensions under certain grounds upon written request.

• Requires teacher candidates entering approved programs beginning September 30, 2015 to meet 21 ACT equivalent or passing Praxis Core score and maintain minimum 2.75 GPA on pre-major coursework (or 3.0 if cohort average exceeds 3.0).

• Applies same ACT/Praxis Core and GPA requirements to nontraditional (alternative route) teacher candidates, measured on content coursework rather than pre-major coursework.

• Establishes Office of Educator Misconduct Evaluations within State Department of Education to assist the Commission on Teacher and Administrator Education with hearings and enforcement of educator code violations.