Certificate holders shall notify the department of any change ofname or mailing address within thirty days of such change. Willful failure to register or provide such notice within one hundred eighty days ofsuch change may constitute grounds for moral character review undersubdivision seven of section three hundred five of this chapter.
That's right, if an educator moves his or her residence, or changes their name and fails to inform the NYSED, the educator can be brought up on charges of misconduct and lose their license! Unbelievable, but apparently true.
Imagine, as a women, you get married and change your last name to your husband's and fail to tell the State, this can trigger the "Moral Character"clause. Moreover, you frequently change your address as you move from place to place and fail to notify the State. That also can trigger a"Moral Character"review. To my knowledge only convicted criminals who are released on probation are subject to this notification requirement.
This is yet another example of the punitive nature of the teacher evaluation system as it makes educators subject to rules that no other State employee is subject to and the notification requirement is similar to criminals who were released from jail and are on probation.
While our UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, claims victory, the reality is quite different and this punitive teacher evaluation system will result in producing a teacher shortage and hurt the "high needs" student population as they will never have "quality teachers" willing to put their career in jeopardy working with this student population.