“How does a situation like the one in Lewiston happen?” Rep. Michael Brennan, D-Portland, asked Eileen King at a public hearing at the Maine Legislature on Tuesday. 

King, the executive director of Maine School Management Association, was testifying on proposed legislation, LD 2192, that would tighten hiring standards for school employees and disclose more about their past conduct to potential employers. 

Hours before Brennan’s question, the legislative Education and Cultural Affairs Committee heard testimony from Lewiston parent Cara Courchesne on her experience in August when she saw a man who she says sexually harassed her 20 years earlier working at her daughter’s school. 

The man had resigned from a different Maine school district allegedly amid an investigation into sexual harassment allegations and was hired in Lewiston. 

“My guess is that information was not held (retained by the district) or there was an agreement that a positive letter of recommendation may be written. Those are guesses. I never had this experience,” King, a former school superintendent, responded to Brennan’s question. 

But it’s an experience that happens far too frequently, said Sen. Margaret Rotundo, D-Lewiston, who sponsored the bill after hearing Courchesne’s story.

Several people at the hearing said that an employee may have the opportunity to resign in lieu of an investigation into unprofessional behavior. If they take the opportunity, under current law the conduct complaints and any initial investigation into them do not follow the employee to the next district.

Because the employee in Courchesne’s case resigned, the allegations and the results of any possible investigation by the previous school district did not appear on the man’s record and were unknown to Lewiston school officials.

“When his previous district refused to share information with the Lewiston public schools, my experience 20 years ago became the only evidence and it was not enough,” Courchesne told the committee. “They had to allow him to return.”

Among the bill’s requirements is that potential Maine school district employees must disclose all current and previous investigations by any former employer, even if the claims were not substantiated.

It also requires school districts to verify applicant employment history over a 20-year span, to notify the Maine Department of Education if any employee leaves a school district before an investigation into improper conduct is complete, and to require an investigation into any conduct complaint, not just formal complaints.

Ben Grant, general counsel for the Maine Education Association, spoke against the bill, saying that it minimizes the due process of an employee if false complaints are made against them. 

Grant suggested the Maine Department of Education serve as the investigator when complaints come up, not school districts, something King agreed with.

Committee members agreed that they wanted to ensure school staff and students were safe while at school, but they appeared to want more information on how other states handle complaints before endorsing the bill.

“As a 40-year educator, of course we want to keep our children safe, but I have experience where this could backfire. I don’t want it to seem like my questions are opposed, but some things concern me,” said Rep. Kimberly Hagen, R-Hampden.