New York State Education

New York’s Teacher Misconduct Cases Face Years-Long Delays, Leaving Students in Limbo

A New York Focus investigation finds that the state can take up to seven years to resolve complaints against educators.

Bianca Fortis · March 26, 2025

| Max Fischer / Pexels; wragg, grublee / Getty images; Illustration by New York Focus

Staying Focused

BlueSky Tweet Share Email

In February 2023, 29-year-old Samantha Farber walked into Room 169 of the Education Building Annex in Albany, prepared to finally testify in an administrative hearing against her former high school teacher, years after she’d reported him for inappropriate behavior at Long Island’s Lawrence Woodmere Academy.

“I was nauseous,” Farber, now a therapist, said. “I was just exhausted. It was just a lot. It was my first time seeing him in well over 10 years.”

For more than three hours, Farber recounted how what started as a friendly relationship between teacher and student escalated to late-night private emails, notes left in her backpack and at her car, and his hands on her shoulders or thigh.

The teacher, Robert Daly, denied having a romantic or sexual interest in Farber, but acknowledged that he should have maintained a stricter professional boundary with her.

“While there was no improper physical relationship with Student A, I became too close to her, and this was a serious failure of judgment,” he wrote in an affidavit. In a deposition, he denied any physical touching.

Do you have experience with moral character actions in New York State?

Reach out to Bianca Fortis at bianca@nysfocus.com or on Signal at bfortis.10.

Farber’s former teacher had been reported to the state in February 2019 after local news outlets covered her story. In April of 2024 — more than five years later — the state notified Farber that the teacher had surrendered his license, precluding him from teaching in public schools within New York state. The case was closed before a formal determination was issued.

Farber also filed a civil suit against Lawrence Woodmere Academy and Daly; the case against Daly was stayed, but the jury found in favor of the school, apparently concluding that there was no forcible touching. Neither Daly nor Lawrence Woodmere Academy responded to requests for comments.

Farber’s long wait isn’t unusual: Due to understaffing, lengthy investigations, and scheduling challenges, as well as delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it can take the state Education Department up to seven years to resolve some complaints against educators, a New York Focus investigation has found.

The state Education Department said moral character reviews vary in their level of complexity, and it can take a long time to build a case, which involves interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence. | Photos: US Dept. of Education, NTSB / Flickr; Illustration by New York Focus

The agency said there is no meaningful way to quantify the average amount of time it takes to close a case, and that there are a number of factors that can delay the process.

The slow grind has contributed to a backlog of more than 1,360 open complaints as of December.

“They’re so backed up on all of these things that it’s just ridiculous,” Farber said. “It’s not fair to anyone. It’s not fair to teachers, either — when they’re innocent, that’s not fair, either, right? Because you’re just pending that investigation.”

The Office of School Personnel Review and Accountability is the unit inside the state Education Department that’s tasked with evaluating an educator’s “moral character” and revoking the licenses of those deemed unfit to teach. The office’s charge is wide-ranging: it’s also responsible for processing more than 100,000 criminal history background checks and fingerprint clearances annually, reviewing allegations of test fraud, and overseeing teacher tenure hearings.

All with a staff of just 24.

The vast majority of teachers are good and decent people, said Bart Zabin, who spent most of his career working as an OSPRA investigator until he retired in 2016.

“But in almost every district, just like in almost every apple orchard, there’s a bad apple or two,” Zabin said. “We take for granted when we send our kids out to school that everything’s okay, and sometimes it isn’t.”

Though only school district superintendents are legally mandated to file complaints against a teacher whose moral character has come into question, under Part 83 of state regulations, anyone can submit one. But what constitutes poor moral character is unclear. The state did not provide a rubric for how panelists should evaluate cases.

Peter Brill, a Long Island attorney who defends teachers during these reviews, said the definition of “moral character” seems to be subjective.

“There doesn’t seem to be a clear guideline,” Brill said. “It seems to almost be like the Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity: ‘When you see it, you know what it is.’”

Teachers undergoing a moral character review can surrender their license at any time. Otherwise, the complaint triggers the formal review process and an investigator is assigned to review the details of the case. OSPRA receives between 5,500 and 6,500 moral character complaints each year, but there are only 11 investigators on staff to review them.

“It’s not fair to anyone. It’s not fair to teachers, either — when they’re innocent, that’s not fair, either, right?”

—Samantha Farber

Investigations can be slow-moving. The state Education Department said moral character reviews vary in their level of complexity, and it can take a long time to build a case, which involves interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence. In Farber’s case, she said a state investigator first tried to contact her through Facebook in May of 2019, but she didn’t see the message or speak to the investigator until September of 2020.

If an investigator recommends that the state move forward with a case, the Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching, similar to a grand jury, decides whether to issue charges and proceed to an administrative hearing. The board meets six times a year, between October and May, to review OSPRA’s recommendations.

The education department said OSPRA may wait for other related proceedings, such as criminal cases or teacher tenure cases, to finish before proceeding with the Part 83 process.

As of February, the Investigative Unit was reviewing 1,348 complaints, while the Legal Unit, which is responsible for the administrative hearings, had 271 cases.

The hearings are modeled after a trial: Attorneys representing the state and the accused teacher present their cases and call witnesses. Either a hearing officer or a three-person panel evaluates the case and makes a decision. But due to scheduling conflicts, one hearing can take months to complete, with hearing dates spaced weeks to months apart. The hearings take place in person in Albany, so panel members and witnesses must travel to the capital.

Panelists are chosen from a list of “nominees,” which is about 30 pages long and contains more than 200 names. But the list is outdated — some of the people identified on it are dead.

An individual who has served on hearing panels and asked not to be named said there is a moral obligation to keep dangerous teachers away from children. But some prospective panelists are reluctant to serve because of the responsibility the role carries: A panel can recommend a teacher enroll in a course, issue a fine of up to $5,000, suspend a teaching certificate, revoke a teaching certificate altogether, or do nothing at all.

“You basically are the jury to decide whether or not you’re going to take away this person’s livelihood,” the panelist said. “We have to make those determinations.”

Then there’s the pay: Panelists who aren’t retired must take time off work to attend the hearing and receive less than minimum wage — $100 per day — for their service. Plus, the state may take up to a year to process those payments.

The panel eventually issues recommendations to the state Education Commissioner, but the educator can challenge those findings. The commissioner makes a final determination, but it can be appealed through the state court system — a process that can also take years.

Unlike the Office of the Professions, a separate state Education Department office that handles licensing for other professionals, OSPRA does not hold moral character hearings virtually. So, during the Covid pandemic, the agency held no hearings — further contributing to the current backlog.

“They were always slow,” Brill said. “Now they’re just slower.”

“The people there are hard-working and dedicated,” he continued. “It’s just that I think they’re a neglected part of the department.”

Zabin, the retired OSPRA investigator, said that the unit needs more resources.

“Unfortunately, it’s getting tougher and tougher in government work to fulfill the mandates and the expectations everybody wants,” he said. “Everybody wants everything to be right until it costs money, and then they don’t want to support it.”

For its part, the state has acknowledged the staffing problem.

“With a continued surge in teacher certification, test administration/security, and discipline-related activity in school districts in recent years, OSPRA has experienced an increased demand for services and in overall activity. Hiring and staffing the office has not kept pace with this demand,” the education department wrote in last year’s annual report.

Historical staffing data shows that the unit has had, at most, 32 employees in 2022.

The agency said that OSPRA is understaffed in key areas: two investigator vacancies out of 13 positions and two attorney vacancies out of five positions. In its budget request this year, the agency asked for additional funding for two education program assistants to work in the fingerprinting division, as well as additional IT funding that will help the unit operate more efficiently.

OSPRA’s budget began to decrease in 2016. It’s increased since then, but hasn’t reached its prior levels. For the 2024-25 fiscal year, the budget is a little over $6 million. In 2015, it was more than $8 million — which would be over $11 million in today’s dollars.

Meanwhile, the unit’s workload is increasing. The office:

Processed a record 117,760 fingerprint clearances in 2023.
Opened 1,786 moral character investigations in 2023, an increase from previous years.
Received 6,092 moral character complaints in 2024 – the most since 2019.

The slow-moving investigations can result in problem teachers staying longer in classrooms.

OSPRA receives between 5,500 and 6,500 moral character complaints each year, but there are only 11 investigators on staff to review them. | Image Phạm Thanh Thịnh / Flickr; Illustration by New York Focus

In 2023, a Westchester teacher resigned amid allegations that he had sexually abused a student. He was removed from his position, but soon found teaching jobs in other districts, according to reporting by the Journal News. He was removed from his last job shortly after the district was alerted to the previous allegations against him.

At the time, the state Education Department said state law protects teachers from losing their licenses while moral character cases are being reviewed.

In Farber’s case, no complaint was filed when she reported Daly to school administrators. At that time, mandatory reporting laws did not apply to private schools. Daly resigned from his job. An administrator provided him with a recommendation letter, and he soon found teaching jobs at other schools.

School districts can elect to revoke a teacher’s tenure, which can more quickly remove dangerous teachers from a classroom, but they can’t pull a teacher’s license altogether.

The state can skip the hearing process and automatically revoke teaching certificates for individuals who have been criminally convicted of a registerable sex offense.

The State Board of Regents is considering updating its regulations to allow the state to suspend teachers who are accused of “boundary violations” that are sexual in nature and committed against a student. If the board adopts the rule change, which is modeled after protocols already in use by the Office of the Professions, it will go into effect in May. The regulation would also place the teacher on a “fast track” and require the state to issue a determination within 120 days.

“The big issue here really relates to the competing interests between the due process rights of employees who are facing potential charges dealing with allegations of moral turpitude versus the opportunity of school districts not to screw these people,” said Jay Worona, the deputy executive director of the New York School Boards Association. “How can they more readily protect students in their midst?”

In a statement, Jonathan Burman, spokesperson for the state Education Department, said there is nothing more important to the agency and the Board of Regents than protecting students.

“Our goal is to ensure that individuals who lack the moral character to teach are removed from classrooms and schools as quickly as the law permits,” he said.

However, Burman added, there are “aspects of the disciplinary process that are beyond the Department’s control and that consume a great deal of time.”

“We will continue to work within the existing regulatory regime, and to constantly seek improvements, to ensure that all of New York’s educators are fit to teach our students,” he said.