9 Investigates: ORCO School District spends thousands on teachers on relief of duty

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — 9 Investigates learned the Orange County School District is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for teachers to sit at home.
 
It happens, in some cases, when teachers are under investigation for allegations of misconduct.
 
Investigative reporter Daralene Jones learned this practice has been eliminated in some districts where officials believe it's a waste of taxpayer money. So, she asked why it's not happening here.
           
Channel 9 started looking into the issue shortly after Megan Urban was relieved of duty last year from Timber Creek High School, accused of erratic driving and drug possession on campus.
 
She was paid $3,311.02 for 27 working days to sit at home, until she was fired.
 
District officials said part of the reason the case was dragged out so long was because the teacher "grieved" the incident.
 
The practice of "relief of duty with pay" cost the district $313,000 last year and $2 million in the last five years. The union thinks it should be banned.
 
"It's an incredible waste of money, resources and waste of good will," Orange County Classroom Teachers Association executive director Mark Erwin Mitchell said.
           
In some cases the teacher is paid to sit at home and replaced with a substitute. Substitutes cost the district nearly $4 million this year and $16 million last school year. But the district does not track how much of that is a result of a teacher placed on "relief of duty."
 
9 Investigates surveyed districts of similar size across the country and found some do not pay teachers to sit at home.
 
Here in Florida, Palm Beach County teachers are either "suspended without pay or re-assigned to different job duties."
 
"We're in the process of looking at all of our policies across the board and I think that we continually go back and revise and make decisions based on what's going on currently," school board member Linda Kobert said.
 
Kobert said it's a balancing act.
 
"While that might sound good in theory, in practice that might not work. On the one hand, you might have an employee accused of an egregious action. We need to make sure, not only are children safe, but other employees as well. We also need both protect our children and any access to sensitive documents or information, that if we simply place them an office job, they might still have access to," Kobert said.  
 
School board chairman Bill Sublette told Channel 9 over the phone that it's something to consider, but he wonders whether the idea of placing teachers in a different job duty would have to go through the collective bargaining process.
           
District officials have made progress reducing the burden on taxpayers, going from $1.2 million paid out in 2008 to $313,000, last year.
 
Officials credit speeding up the investigations and closer monitoring over the cases.
 
In Central Florida, we learned Seminole and Brevard County school districts also pay teachers during the course of an active investigation. Volusia and Osceola County officials said they have also found it beneficial to reassign employees as opposed to them being paid to sit at home.

Channel 9 asked districts about cases involving something serious, like sexual misconduct with a student. Officials said that generally teachers are reassigned to areas where they would have no contact with students.

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