Misconduct complaints against educators in Utah public schools have been on the rise during the first months of 2025, representatives of the Utah State Board of Education told legislators on Wednesday. But, requests for funding to hire more attorneys to review the cases have failed since 2023.
The Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission (UPPAC), a panel that reviews and investigates complaints on educators to determine whether they get to keep their licenses, usually takes about 11 months until making a final decision.
There are various reasons why a case may take a long time, Ben Rasmussen, executive secretary of UPPAC told the Education Interim Committee — it may be the time it takes to investigate it or reach an agreement with the educator’s attorneys. The commission’s staff capacity can also delay the process, and sometimes, whenever there are criminal charges involved, the panel waits for courts’ decisions before taking disciplinary action.
Since Rasmussen started his role in 2015, the number of cases his office investigates has almost tripled, going from 63 to 173 in 2024. This year alone, the panel has already received 93 complaints.
“Leading up to the last couple of years, it was typical that UPPAC would review maybe 10 to 15 cases on a monthly basis,” Rasmussen said. “Given changes in board rules that have increased requirements for (schools’) reports and given increases in hotline complaints, you can see that it’s not uncommon for us to be reviewing closer to 50 cases a month now.”
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.
