When teachers are accused of sex crimes, their credentials can be suspended much sooner than in the past because a new law requires school districts to notify the credentialing commission as soon as the charges are filed.

But holes in the system still make it possible for suspect teachers to remain in the classroom longer than parents would like.

While police usually alert school officials when a teacher has been arrested, they are not required to, according to Riverside police spokesman Felix Medina.

Sometimes the suspect does not tell police of his or her occupation. And, the teacher could be charged with a sex crime but plead guilty to a lesser charge that is not sex-related.

That is what happened when former Moreno Valley teacher Thomas Lee West Jr. was charged with multiple felony counts of child molestation 11 years ago, yet managed to keep his job until his second arrest last month.

West was arrested on suspicion of molesting two boys over a period of years. School district officials, who were notified by police, say they don't know why West wasn't monitored after he faced similar charges in 1992. West, who is still in jail, resigned last week. His next court date is Sept. 16.

Even though West, 48, was charged with 10 counts of felony child molestation 11 years ago, he plea-bargained to a single misdemeanor charge of child cruelty. At the time, school districts were not required to notify the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Lee Pope, the commission's attorney, said that if the commission had been notified, West's credential would have been suspended.

Today, under a law that went into effect last year, a school district must inform the credentialing commission within 10 days when a teacher is charged with a sex offense, certain drug offenses and murder. The credential is automatically suspended pending conviction.

"Before that, it was unclear how we were supposed to find out," Pope said. "But the problem with that is, the suspect has to notify police that they are a teacher. Sometimes they don't, for child sex offenses."

The Beaumont Unified School District was unaware for more than a year that one of its teachers had been arrested for drug possession.

Mary Gil Wood, who was married to Beaumont's then-superintendent, John Wood, had been arrested in a Palm Springs casino in 1997 and later charged with felony possession of methamphetamine and being under the influence of the drug.

The space on the report meant to identify Wood's employer was left blank. Court records showed that she later told a judge she was a part-time teacher and that she did not work in the summer months.

The process

There are more than 300,000 credential holders in the state, which includes administrators, Pope said.

If a teacher is not convicted of the charges or plea-bargains to a lesser charge, the suspension is lifted and the teacher is cleared, which means that the suspension will not appear on the teacher's permanent record.

In cases where a teacher is charged with a crime that does not require an automatic suspension, such as robbery or a misdemeanor, the credential isn't suspended during the investigation, Pope said.

"We don't suspend your credential while we're waiting to see if you're guilty of the crime," he said.

California requires criminal background checks for teacher certification, which uses FBI and state records and fingerprinting.

Teachers without previous background checks from other districts, applying to teach in California, could have to pay up to $175 for the background checks and the teaching credential.

Background checks

Last school year, a Moreno Valley area high school teacher was fired after two weeks on the job when a criminal background check discovered that he was being investigated for child abuse and the murder of his ex-wife in another state, said Moreno Valley Unified school board president Tracey Vackar.

"That to me is very scary," Vackar said. "I think we're doing everything we can to prevent it."

The district's human resources director, Willie Hasson, said he has no knowledge of this incident and insisted that, "We never put anyone in a classroom unless we have all the background information back," which could take from one to 30 days.

Vackar, whose own children had West at Vista Heights Middle School and who was on the school board in 1992 when West was first charged, said she has little recollection of the charges against him.

She said she remembers the district dealt with multiple cases in which they did not know a teacher was being investigated. She attributes that to a lack of communication between the Riverside district attorney's office and the school district.

"Was there a problem back then? I think there was a problem," she said. "Since then, the relationship has changed."

"We found ourselves having to react to charges because it wasn't brought to our attention," she said. "I can remember times we had to pay off teachers to leave because they pleaded down to a misdemeanor."

In these cases, the district would ask the teachers to turn in their teaching credential.

For example, Vackar recalled that the district paid a male teacher $100,000 to surrender his credential and resign as part of a settlement agreement.

"He knew he had to get help," she said. "I was appalled. I was so disgusted."