Texas has received more than 16,000 educator misconduct reports this year as TEA works to accelerate thousands of active investigations, expand its Do Not Hire Registry, and enforce stricter reporting requirements for school leaders.

Editorial Note

This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. It is based on publicly available information from the Texas Education Agency, Texas statutes, federal authorities, and news reporting current as of August 19, 2026. Laws, regulations, investigations, and agency procedures may change after publication.

A misconduct report, investigation, placement of an allegation notice, employment action, arrest, or criminal charge does not by itself establish that an educator committed misconduct. Individual cases should be evaluated based on their evidence and procedural status. Schools and administrators with questions about their legal obligations should consult current official guidance or qualified counsel.

Texas Is Receiving Educator Misconduct Reports at an Unprecedented Pace

Texas education officials are confronting a dramatic increase in reports of alleged educator misconduct, forcing the state to rethink how quickly cases are investigated and how potentially dangerous employees are kept away from students while those investigations continue.

CBS Texas reported August 19 that the Texas Education Agency has received more than 16,000 educator misconduct reports this year, according to Levi Fuller, the state's first Inspector General for Educator Misconduct. Approximately 9,000 investigations are currently active. Fuller said changes implemented through his office now allow roughly 7,100 cases to move through a temporary-suspension process, which is intended to accelerate the handling of cases while protecting students during the investigative period.

Those numbers are significant, but they require careful interpretation. An increase in reports does not necessarily prove that educator misconduct itself has increased at the same rate. Fuller has argued that stronger reporting requirements and greater awareness are contributing to the surge because districts are reporting conduct that may previously have gone unreported or been handled only at the local level. Earlier this year, he said TEA's average monthly reports had increased from approximately 476 to more than 1,400.

That distinction matters. A state receiving more misconduct reports may be confronting more misconduct, better detection, broader reporting definitions, stricter enforcement—or some combination of all four.

What is clear is that Texas has moved educator misconduct from a largely district-level personnel issue into a much more aggressive statewide accountability system.

Texas Created a New Inspector General Specifically for Educator Misconduct

In February, Education Commissioner Mike Morath appointed Levi Fuller as Texas' first Inspector General for Educator Misconduct, creating a dedicated position to oversee the state's response to misconduct allegations. TEA said the inspector general would work with its Educator Investigation Division on decisions involving certification sanctions, the Do Not Hire Registry, settlements, investigations, and case closures.

The position was created during a period of increasing concern over whether allegations were being reported quickly enough, whether educators accused of serious conduct could move between school systems, and whether TEA had enough investigative capacity to respond to the volume of cases.

Fuller told CBS Texas that his goal is to make investigations move more quickly while preventing educators accused of serious misconduct from remaining in classrooms when student safety may be at risk.

That is a difficult balance.

A state system that moves too slowly can leave students exposed to avoidable risk. A system that treats every allegation as a proven violation can undermine due process and professional fairness. Effective safeguarding requires both speed and a clear distinction between an allegation, an investigative finding, and a final disciplinary action.

Texas' current reforms appear designed to address that tension by allowing precautionary actions in serious cases while investigations continue.

More Than 100 Educators a Month Are Being Added to the Do Not Hire Registry

One of the most striking figures disclosed this week involves Texas' Do Not Hire Registry.

Fuller told CBS Texas that TEA is currently adding approximately 112 educators per month on average to the registry. The registry is intended to prevent school systems from simply rehiring individuals who fall within applicable statutory restrictions.

The broader framework was strengthened through Senate Bill 571, signed into law in June 2025. The legislation reorganized and expanded Texas' educator misconduct rules through Chapter 22A of the Education Code, broadened covered misconduct, shortened key reporting timelines, and strengthened mechanisms for identifying individuals whose conduct may make them ineligible for school employment. TEA's July 2026 reporting guide confirms that SB 571 created the new Chapter 22A framework and shortened misconduct-reporting timelines.

The registry should not be confused with a public list establishing criminal guilt. Texas law contains different procedures depending on the nature and status of an allegation or finding, including provisions allowing a notice of alleged misconduct to appear on an educator's certification record when the alleged conduct presents a risk to the health, safety, or welfare of a student or minor. The law also establishes procedures for notice and review.

That distinction is essential when discussing educator discipline publicly. Administrative actions, employment decisions, certification sanctions, civil claims, and criminal proceedings can overlap, but they are not interchangeable.

Texas School Leaders Now Face Much Faster Reporting Deadlines

Perhaps the most important part of the story for principals and superintendents is not the headline number of investigations. It is the speed with which administrators are now expected to act.

TEA currently tells principals that they must notify their superintendent within 48 hours after becoming aware of evidence of certain reportable misconduct involving an employee, contractor, or service provider. Superintendents have independent reporting obligations and generally must submit required misconduct reports to TEA and the State Board for Educator Certification within 48 hours of receiving notice.

TEA emphasizes that administrators are expected to report based on reasonable suspicion or qualifying evidence—not wait until an internal investigation proves the allegation. The agency specifically identifies concerns such as abuse or physical mistreatment, romantic or sexual conduct involving a student or minor, inappropriate communications, boundary violations, certain drug offenses, misuse of school funds or property, and some criminal or testing-related conduct as potentially reportable.

The reporting obligation also does not simply disappear when an employee resigns, is terminated, or is placed on leave.

Under the current framework, administrators cannot treat an employee's departure as the end of the matter. That principle is critical because one of the longstanding vulnerabilities in education has been the possibility that a concerning employee could quietly leave one school system and seek employment somewhere else before another district understood the circumstances surrounding the departure.

SB 571 is designed in part to make that type of information harder to lose between institutions.

A Local Investigation Does Not Replace the State Reporting Requirement

One of the most important compliance lessons in TEA's updated guidance is that school leaders should not assume they can finish their own investigation before informing the state.

TEA states that superintendent reporting duties are independent, mandatory, and nondelegable, and they can apply while a local investigation is still underway. The agency also warns that submitting a general TEA complaint does not substitute for filing a required misconduct report through the official Misconduct Reporting Portal.

That creates an important shift in how administrators should think about misconduct.

The question is no longer simply, "Have we established that this employee violated policy?"

The earlier question may need to be, "Do we currently have information that triggers a legal reporting obligation?"

Those are not the same standard.

Waiting for certainty can create its own compliance risk when the law requires reporting before a school has completed every interview, reviewed every device, or resolved every disputed fact.

Child-Abuse Reporting Can Create a Separate Obligation

Educator-misconduct reporting to TEA should also not be confused with Texas' separate child-abuse reporting requirements.

TEA's July 2026 Misconduct Reporting Portal guide explains that professionals generally must report suspected child abuse to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services or an appropriate law-enforcement agency within 24 hours when they have reasonable cause to believe abuse has occurred.

That means a serious school misconduct allegation can potentially generate more than one reporting pathway.

An administrator may have responsibilities within the school system, obligations to TEA or SBEC, and separate child-protection reporting duties. Contacting one entity does not automatically satisfy every other requirement.

For school leaders, this is why a simple internal checklist is no longer enough unless that checklist clearly distinguishes which report goes where, who is responsible for submitting it, and how quickly each action must occur.

Why 16,000 Reports Should Not Be Read as 16,000 Proven Cases

The number attached to this story is likely to attract attention: more than 16,000 reports in a year.

But readers should resist interpreting that as 16,000 educators proven to have harmed students.

A report begins a process. It may involve an allegation serious enough to require immediate protective action, but the underlying facts can still be disputed. Some reports may eventually support certification sanctions or employment consequences. Others may not.

TEA itself distinguishes between allegation categories and final findings. Its disciplinary reporting materials warn that allegation codes are used to categorize cases based on the information available when a matter is reported and should not be interpreted as findings that a person violated the law or SBEC rules.

That procedural distinction protects two important interests at once.

Students need a system capable of acting before every fact is conclusively established. Educators also need a system that does not convert an accusation into an automatic declaration of guilt.

Good policy should be able to do both.

The Rise in Reports May Actually Reveal a Stronger Reporting Culture

There is another way to interpret the surge.

If misconduct existed before but was not being consistently elevated to the state, then a sharp rise in reports may partly reflect the correction of an accountability failure rather than proof of a sudden collapse in educator behavior.

Fuller has made essentially that argument, saying earlier this year that the state needs to know about problems before it can address them. He has attributed part of the increase to greater compliance with new reporting requirements.

This matters because organizations sometimes evaluate safeguarding systems using the wrong metric.

A school with very few reported incidents is not automatically safer than a school that records more concerns. Low reporting can mean low misconduct, but it can also mean employees do not recognize warning signs, do not trust the reporting system, fear retaliation, or believe leadership will not act.

A healthier question is whether concerns are recognized, documented, escalated, independently evaluated, and resolved appropriately.

In that sense, an uncomfortable increase in reported cases can sometimes be evidence that a previously hidden problem is becoming more visible.

Federal Authorities Are Now Increasing the Pressure on Texas Districts

Texas' state-level reforms are unfolding alongside a new federal enforcement effort.

On August 18, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas announced Project Safe Schools, an initiative intended to coordinate federal, state, and local resources around educator misconduct and failures to comply with reporting requirements. Federal officials said TEA had opened more than 9,720 educator-misconduct investigations during the previous two years.

The announcement was accompanied by enforcement actions involving Forney Independent School District and former employees.

Forney ISD agreed to pay $14,308 to resolve federal civil allegations that it submitted false or misleading certifications concerning compliance with mandatory-reporting laws in connection with federal IDEA funding. The settlement also requires enhanced compliance measures. The settlement resolves allegations and does not constitute a judicial determination of civil liability.

Federal prosecutors also announced wire-fraud and conspiracy charges against former Principal Wendy Bailey and teacher Michael Roell, also known as Johnathan Michael. Prosecutors allege the defendants participated in concealing information concerning Roell's prior arrest and hiring history. Those are allegations contained in a criminal case, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has also encouraged North Texas school districts to review their practices and voluntarily disclose certain past reporting failures from the previous five years.

That development substantially raises the stakes for district leadership. Reporting failures are no longer merely an internal HR issue or an educator-certification concern. In some circumstances, they can intersect with federal funding certifications, civil enforcement, or criminal investigations.

The Real Accountability Test Happens Before an Arrest Makes the News

High-profile educator misconduct cases often appear straightforward after an arrest.

A district places someone on leave. A board begins termination proceedings. Police issue statements. Parents demand answers.

The harder leadership test occurs earlier—when information is incomplete.

A student says something concerning but unclear. A parent reports a boundary issue. An employee notices unusual communications. A principal receives information about conduct that has not yet been independently verified.

Those are the moments when institutional culture matters most.

Strong school systems do not require the person receiving the first concern to solve the entire case. They require that person to recognize when the concern has crossed a reporting threshold and move it to the appropriate authority.

Reporting is not the same as finding someone guilty.

It is the process that allows the people legally responsible for investigating the concern to determine what happened.

Documentation Is Becoming as Important as the Initial Report

Texas' stricter system also makes documentation increasingly important.

School leaders should be able to reconstruct when a concern was first received, who received it, what information was provided, when the principal notified the superintendent, when required reports were submitted, what temporary safety measures were taken, and whether law enforcement or child-protection authorities were separately notified when required.

That record protects students, but it also protects responsible employees and administrators.

Months later, memories differ. Employees change positions. Electronic messages disappear. A concern that initially seemed minor may later become part of a much larger investigation.

Contemporaneous records give investigators something more reliable than competing recollections.

This is especially important when statutory reporting clocks are measured in hours rather than weeks.

School Leaders Cannot Delegate Away Accountability

TEA's description of superintendent reporting duties as nondelegable deserves particular attention.

Large school systems often distribute responsibilities across human resources, legal departments, Title IX coordinators, police departments, campus administrators, and central-office personnel. That division of labor can be necessary, but organizational complexity cannot become a reason required reports are missed.

A superintendent may have staff who prepare information or manage administrative systems, but the legal duty remains attached to the designated official where state law places it.

The practical lesson is that every district should know who owns each stage of the process.

When everyone assumes someone else made the report, the system has failed even if many people knew about the allegation.

New To Education Analysis: Texas Is Moving From Reactive Discipline to System-Level Prevention

The most consequential part of Texas' approach is not the creation of another government position or another database.

It is the state's attempt to build a system in which warning information follows the problem rather than disappearing when an employee changes schools.

That is the real policy challenge.

Schools will never eliminate every act of misconduct through background checks or reporting rules. Some individuals have no prior history that would reveal future behavior. Other allegations will be difficult to evaluate. False or unsupported accusations can occur and must be handled fairly.

But institutions can reduce avoidable risk.

They can prevent a resignation from ending an investigation. They can prevent credible concerns from remaining trapped in one principal's office. They can require information to be elevated quickly. They can preserve due process while temporarily restricting access to students when the alleged conduct presents a serious safety concern. They can also make it harder for known misconduct to be quietly separated from an employee's professional history.

The surge in Texas reports will test whether the state has built enough investigative capacity to accomplish those goals.

More reporting is useful only if agencies can process the information responsibly and resolve cases in a reasonable period. Thousands of unresolved investigations can create uncertainty for students, families, districts, and accused educators alike.

Texas therefore faces two related challenges: getting concerns into the system quickly and getting cases through the system fairly.

The first problem is reporting.

The second is capacity.

What Districts Should Be Reviewing Now

Texas districts should treat the current enforcement environment as an opportunity to review their systems before a serious case exposes weaknesses.

Administrators should know the current 48-hour reporting requirements, understand the difference between TEA misconduct reporting and child-abuse reporting, confirm that the correct personnel have access to the Misconduct Reporting Portal, and make sure internal policy does not instruct employees to wait for a completed investigation before escalating information that is legally reportable.

Districts should also examine how information moves when the allegation involves a popular teacher, successful coach, senior administrator, contractor, substitute, or long-serving employee. Safeguarding systems are most valuable when they work consistently regardless of a person's professional reputation.

Finally, leaders should assess whether employees genuinely understand that reporting a concern is not the same as declaring a colleague guilty.

A culture that treats every report as betrayal may discourage employees from speaking.

A culture that treats every accusation as proof can create a different form of injustice.

Professional reporting systems need room for both vigilance and fairness.

How New To Education Supports Safer, Better-Informed School Communities

New To Education covers educational law, school leadership, student safety, educator accountability, and the policies affecting teachers and families.

These issues require more than repeating the details of an arrest or lawsuit. Understanding educator misconduct also means understanding mandatory reporting, administrative responsibilities, due process, certification systems, institutional safeguards, and the decisions school leaders make before a case becomes public.

New To Education also provides tutoring, educational support, consulting, career resources, and a growing education community for learners and professionals.

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Key Takeaways

Texas has received more than 16,000 educator misconduct reports this year, according to the state's Inspector General for Educator Misconduct, with approximately 9,000 investigations currently active. TEA has expanded procedures intended to move thousands of those cases more quickly.

The increase does not automatically mean educator misconduct has risen at the same rate. State officials have said stronger reporting requirements and increased awareness are contributing to the higher numbers.

Texas law now places significant time-sensitive responsibilities on school administrators. Principals and superintendents can face 48-hour reporting requirements, and local investigations do not necessarily allow a district to delay mandatory state reporting.

TEA is adding an average of approximately 112 educators per month to its Do Not Hire Registry, while federal authorities have simultaneously launched Project Safe Schools in North Texas to examine misconduct and reporting failures.

The larger challenge now is whether Texas can investigate the growing number of reports quickly enough to protect students while maintaining fair procedures for educators who have not yet been found responsible for wrongdoing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many educator misconduct reports has Texas received in 2026?

Texas Inspector General for Educator Misconduct Levi Fuller told CBS Texas that TEA has received more than 16,000 reports this year. Approximately 9,000 investigations were active as of August 19.

Does a misconduct report mean the educator is guilty?

No. A report is an allegation or notification that may trigger review or investigation. It is not automatically a finding that misconduct occurred. TEA's own disciplinary materials distinguish allegation classifications from findings.

How quickly must Texas administrators report certain misconduct?

TEA states that principals generally must notify superintendents within 48 hours after becoming aware of qualifying evidence, and superintendents have their own 48-hour reporting obligations to the state in covered circumstances. Additional requirements can apply following resignation or termination.

Can a district finish its internal investigation before reporting?

Not necessarily. TEA states that required superintendent reporting duties apply even while a local investigation is ongoing.

What is the Texas Do Not Hire Registry?

It is part of Texas' system for preventing individuals who meet statutory disqualification criteria from obtaining certain school employment. The state has expanded the registry and related misconduct procedures under legislation including SB 571.

Final Thoughts

Texas is sending school leaders a clear message: serious educator misconduct concerns are expected to move quickly beyond the campus level.

The state's surge in reports should not be reduced to a claim that thousands of educators have suddenly been proven guilty of misconduct. The numbers tell a more complicated story about stronger reporting requirements, increased scrutiny, a broader state system, and a growing investigative workload.

The ultimate measure of success will not be how many reports Texas receives or how many names appear in a database.

It will be whether credible concerns are identified early, students are protected, administrators fulfill their legal responsibilities, investigations are completed fairly and efficiently, and educators who are cleared are distinguished from those whose misconduct is established.

Schools depend on trust.

That trust is strengthened not by pretending misconduct never occurs, but by proving that when serious concerns arise, the system is capable of responding responsibly.

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