Education, Law & Principles

New Oklahoma law closes loophole allowing abusive school employees to hop districts

December 22, 2025

Ray Carter

Newly elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2024, state Rep. Derrick Hildebrant was quickly approached by a prosecutor friend to file legislation addressing a longstanding problem: Under Oklahoma law, teachers accused of abusing students could resign and then obtain a job at another school without the new school knowing about the allegations.

While Hildebrant’s friend has prosecuted some of those individuals, the opportunity to pursue charges often did not arise until there were multiple victims over several years at several schools.

“They are addressing these cases on the fourth and fifth school that these perpetrators are at, instead of the first or second, because they have been able to resign and move from school to school,” said Hildebrant, R-Catoosa.

House Bill 1075, sponsored by Hildebrant and state Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, requires schools to submit to the State Board of Education the findings of any investigation into a teacher or superintendent accused of student abuse, even if the teacher resigns during the investigation. Any investigative findings substantiating abuse claims will be kept part of a teacher’s state record and can be referenced by other school districts when doing background checks.

The law easily passed the Legislature and was signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt. It went into effect on Nov. 1.

Kyla Skeens is among those praising the law’s passage. She said her son, Arlo, who has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), was abused a year ago by an employee of Duncan Public Schools when he was only six years old.

The week before Easter 2024, Arlo tried to walk into a principal’s office for a stuffed animal. Skeens said the boy had been allowed to enter the office for the stuffed animal on many other occasions. But that day, a school counselor objected—and physically dragged the boy out of the office and slammed him into a seat.

The school employee assaulted the small boy with enough force to leave significant bruising on his arms.

Although the incident occurred in Duncan schools on a Wednesday, school officials did not meet with Skeens until Friday, and they were vague about the reason for the meeting. Her son had expressed distress over the incident but had not been able to convey exactly what happened.

At the school, officials showed Skeens video from security cameras showing the incident but refused to provide her with a copy.

Skeens was shocked by the video.

“No mom should have to see that,” Skeens said, noting that “you could see the anger all over the woman’s face before the incident happened.”

Had a parent done the same thing, Skeens said, they “would have been arrested.”

“It was a lot to watch,” Skeens recalled. “It was terribly, terribly sad to watch.”

However, the Duncan school employee was allowed to resign from her job, which ended the school investigation and allowed the woman to maintain her teaching license. She was soon employed again at Lawton.

“I didn’t know that teachers could just do that, that educational staff could just move on to another school,” Skeens said. “I was shocked. That made me mad, really, that they could do that.”

She said Duncan officials did not notify the Oklahoma State Department of Education about the incident. The agency, which can revoke a teacher’s certificate for abuse, only began an investigation after Skeens and individuals assisting her notified the agency. At that point, the employee also resigned from Lawton and allowed her certificate to expire.

That means the woman cannot teach in an Oklahoma school—at least for now.

However, Lucia Frohling, director of parent services at Oklahoma Parents for Student Achievement, said it is possible the former counselor could have her license reinstated in the future and obtain another job in an Oklahoma school.

“We don’t know if there’s anything in the file for her, so what if in two years she decides to renew her certificate?” Frohling said. “Then no investigation was completed, so she could technically get her license back, and it could start the cycle again.”

That’s one of the remaining loopholes Hildebrant wants to close in future sessions, and he already plans to file legislation addressing others.

“The original intent was to not only hold teachers and administrators accountable, but also support personnel,” Hildebrant said. “Your coaches and bus drivers and janitors and school-resource officers—everybody. The challenge was that teachers and administrators have certifications. You could hold them accountable relative to their certifications. Support personnel did not.”

In the 2026 session, Hildebrant plans to file legislation that will apply employee numbers to all support personnel and make that a requirement for employment at a state school. Loss of that recognition would make those individuals ineligible for school positions.

“All of these support personnel already have to take training if they’re working with children,” Hildebrant said. “They have to have background checks. And so we’re just wanting a number assigned to them and something where they can be registered in a system and be held accountable.”

Without creating an accountability mechanism, he notes that many school employees can abuse children and then move to another school.

“Let’s say this happened with a janitor or a coach,” Hildebrant said. “They would just be dismissed, fired, and they could go to another district and be hired, and there would be no idea that that person was involved with anything, any sort of misconduct in the previous district.”

Hildebrant’s legislation is not the only measure passed by lawmakers to address the problem of abusive school employees hopping from school to school, a process informally referred to as “passing the trash” in K-12 circles.

This year, lawmakers also passed House Bill 2798, by state Rep. Toni Hasenbeck and state Sen. Jerry Alvord.

HB 2798 provides that any superintendent or school administrator who knowingly and willfully fails to promptly report or interferes with the prompt reporting of child abuse or neglect can face felony charges punishable by at least two years in prison and as much as 10 years, or a fine of at least $20,000. The legislation took effect on Nov. 1.

“It’s been a problem that has plagued our nation’s children for years,” said Hasenbeck, an Elgin Republican who is a former teacher. “My intent was never for administrators to go to jail; it was to compel them to report the crime.”

Recent incidents have reinforced why House Bills 1075 and 2798 were enacted.

Riley Paige Burns, a former special education teacher’s assistant, reported on Facebook that she recently quit her job in Edmond schools because a special-education teacher in the district “is abusing Down syndrome and autistic students at Edmond North High School and the school is allowing it because they don’t wanna do the work to fire her.”

Duncan Police recently confirmed that they are investigating an incident involving a student who was reportedly “stuck with a needle by a teacher.” The Duncan Banner reported that the investigation “now involves multiple juvenile victims.”

Skeens said her son is now in a much better place, physically and emotionally, than he was a year and a half ago.

Skeens was able to transfer Arlo to a smaller school district where he is now “thriving,” she said. Notably, she said that district has successfully integrated the boy into the general population, while Duncan officials kept him segregated from other students despite Duncan being a larger school with more resources.

Skeens and other advocates recently met with Hildebrant to thank him for his legislation. When he filed the bill, Hildebrant said he knew abusers had been allowed to escape consequences in a school setting, but personally meeting those who have lived through that horror makes the issue far more pressing.

“I knew it had an effect on certain families,” Hildebrant said. “I didn’t know about Arlo’s case at the time.”

[Photo: In the 2025 legislative session, state Rep. Derrick Hildebrant authored legislation to prevent school personnel from resigning to end an investigation of alleged student abuse and then obtaining employment at another school. This month at the Oklahoma Capitol, he met the family of one student, Arlo, who experienced that scenario.]