Transcript of BONUS | Our Conversation with TSPC

I'm Chloe Hajimathew, a reporter at The Observer. I've worked on a lot of investigations, but some stories never leave you. When Gareth was 14, he thought he was the luckiest boy at school. He was sleeping with his young, attractive female teacher. Years later, when he understood the harm she'd done, he went looking for justice, but the people who knew stayed silent. To them, he was just a lucky boy. So he came to me. When I started pulling at the threads of his story, I never imagined where they'd lead— to witnesses I unearthed standing in a courtroom testifying against his teacher. To listen to Lucky Boy, search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Sydney. Today we wanted to share a conversation with Eric Duroc from TSPC. The Teachers Standard and Practice Commission played a huge part in our investigation. TSPC is an independent state agency in Oregon. They're that licenses teachers and investigates reported misconduct. In episodes 3 and 4, we talked about how TSPC final orders are written, and we highlighted the discrepancy between the allegations in the investigation report about Jeff Stanek and what was actually included in his final settlement. We had some questions about TSPC's process and wanted to understand how these final settlements get written. So back in January, we spoke with Eric Duroc, who was the interim director of professional practices from late December 2025 to July 2026. Jim Horton accepted the permanent position and took over from Eric then. I started by asking Eric how TSPC takes all the information from an investigation and starts actually drafting the final settlement language.

From the big picture standpoint, there's always strengths and weaknesses in a case or an investigation, regardless of what it is. Sometimes there's procedural stuff when it comes to that. Court case and, you know, the hearing that in conversation may realize, hey, the other side may have a good argument as to why this might not be accepted. But that would be what's typically occurring in the background. Had one a couple of days ago around a case that's getting set for hearing of, hey, here's the weaknesses in the case. What do we think based on the behaviors? Is it worth the battle and the risk of going to a hearing and and then having the ALJ rule against us and get absolutely nothing, or is this compromise that's been proposed an acceptable answer? You know, think of a criminal case. Somebody's charged with these 20 counts, they plead to 3. It's just part of that negotiation process. I would also add that one of the considerations that TSPC takes, or the commission takes, into mind when they're discussing this is, at the end of the day, if discipline is imposed, it then gets published on our website.

So there is this final notice of what the discipline is, and then you or anyone can do a public records request and access it, and it is a public record. So sometimes one of the pieces of weight that's considered is, do we risk losing everything and not getting any discipline? And now it's something that If an investigation doesn't have discipline, it's not a public record. Or do we say, yes, we'll settle with this compromise, be able to publish this discipline, even if it's not maybe what is the most we would want, but then it gets out there in the public record and you or anyone can then see all of the facts and see that deeper that, hey, maybe there was more that was going on than reached that final order.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a hard dance.

I don't disagree.

Are there common considerations or weaknesses that come up frequently?

I think generally it's going to be case by case. However, what I would say again, from my experience across multiple agencies, is one of the things could be How did an investigator do an investigation? Meaning, you know, were there inappropriate questions asked? You know, did they tick all the boxes they needed to tick? There's ways that can be overcome as part of an investigation. But then also one of my roles in this role, or whoever that permanent person should be, is making sure that the investigators are trained to a certain level, have sufficient training and interview experience and skills to be able to Do an investigation. With that being said, any investigation, somebody on the other side is always going to poke holes, period. You can never think of all the questions. You can never tick all the boxes to make sure everything is done. So it's, it's natural. One of the tasks in my position, and I would say the legal liaisons as well, is to think, what's the other side thinking? How is the other side going to approach this? And what are they going to see as weaknesses? And no matter who you are, there's always going to be something you could have done better.

After these TSPC final orders come out, we've been noticing that some of the people who we've been investigating have gone on to get jobs where they're in really close contact with young people, not necessarily minors, but they're in a, like, peer-to-peer coaching role or coaching college or doing things like that. When I've run background checks on some of these people that we've been looking into, The final orders don't usually pop up, and that's just kind of on like a standard background check. So I'm curious, is there an awareness of this within TSPC, and is there a way to solve for that? Because I'm thinking like someone was going to coach at a YMCA or something like that, this might not show up on their record.

Yeah, there's definitely a concern. However, there's a limit as to what we can do. We've put it out there in the public domain. It's up to that prospective employer to be doing sufficient background to see whether that candidate is somebody that should fit in that role. I'm doing it right now for new investigators. One of my roles as a hiring manager, both here and in prior roles, is to do those reference checks. And I'll say there are varied levels that people do. You know, some employers require full backgrounds, meaning run that CCH, run all of these things, do deep dive into internet searches. And others, it's as simple as Call a couple of references, the references say good things, they hire. So yes, your concern is legitimate. It's something that we're very much aware of, but unfortunately our role really ends at the, hey, we put it in the public domain. Now it's that potential employer's responsibility to check up on who they're hiring.

We wanted to talk about TSPC's backlog of cases. In November 2025, a local news station reported that TSPC had 635 open cases. And it was taking years for some investigations to close.

What I see across the board in my experience is that investigations have really expanded their role in the last decade. And so agencies have not caught up funding-wise. You know, we could then step into the state budget and the impending budget crisis and that, you know, how do you, how do you fill these positions or pay for these positions? So. With that background, it's, I, I've clearly seen this uptick. I've heard the same thing from peers. I see this clear pattern, but then trying to catch up with the appropriate number of investigators is the challenge. The way that impacts is very much to the negative because you have an educator who knows they're under investigation. There is stress involved with that regardless of whether the behavior occurred or not. It's a potential financial impact. It's an impact to their employer at the school district because same thing, they're wondering what is this investigation going to get done? We've put them on administrative leave and even though they can make their own employment decision separate from a TSPC decision, sometimes educators or school districts are hesitant to make decisions Because the concern would be, hey, we re-employed or we reinstated, we brought them off admin leave, and then TSPC does an investigation and finds these things that they weren't aware of.

So, and the same with OGIS, the same with law enforcement. So you've got these multiple agencies that are all looking at the potential similar behavior or the same behavior with different lenses. The backlog is a huge negative. Across the board for everybody involved. And it's stuff that I know is being discussed. I know part of my coming in is the legislature, governor's office has approved funding to hire more investigators at TSPC to try to work through this backlog. One of the things that I'm trying to do is to streamline process. Are there things that were being done previously that don't truly need to be done? Are there cases that we were opening as investigations that realistically, when we look at the facts that were provided to us, do they meet the definition of gross misconduct, which is one of the statutes we really fall back to is what's gross misconduct? I could go down a side on that for a while of it's extremely difficult to define gross misconduct. So there's a lot of discussions as how can we, how can we streamline this and improve it? The workload and the caseload unfortunately is higher than It used to be.

Do you believe the reason that there are more cases and more reports coming in to be that people are more aware of your agency now, or do you believe it to be like an uptick in activity that constitutes gross misconduct?

Personal opinion is it's awareness, which is one of the positives, is things that used to be— I'm going to air quote— acceptable or that people didn't report are now being reported because there is an awareness that, hey, this behavior is something that should be addressed and needs to be looked at. The negative is that backlog and how long it takes, but the positive is behaviors that before were ignored hopefully are not being ignored as frequently as in the past.

Yeah, I know that in the United States that the Department of Education doesn't really track instances of educator sexual misconduct or other things related to that. And I'm curious if TSPC has data or information, since you have been the ones doing the bulk of these investigations, to understand more how that looks at a statewide level.

I know there's going to be data. I just don't know how good our systems are in pulling old data to be able to do a true comparison at peak. And again, is it Increased behavior? Is it increased awareness? Are there more licensed educators than there were 10 years ago? The way education has changed in the last decade, my understanding is there's a lot more licensed educators in the state, so that could be part of the uptick.

Right now we're looking at one case that it took 3 years to get through the process once it was reported, and I'm curious if that feels like a normal timeline for cases right now.

I'm going to say that I know we have a backlog that is somewhere between 2 and 3 years, so that is not surprising. to me as a number. The exception to that is the sexual misconduct cases where we have statutory requirements to get them done within 90 days. Now, there's exceptions of things that can extend that timeframe, but those become the priority, which is part of why you then see some of those sitting for, or languishing for 3 years, is because we've got other priorities that are required by statute.

So once the process is going and there's been an investigation and you're at this stage where there's basically kind of a negotiation happening. Is there anything else that slows this down?

It's similar to any legal process where you have the right for discovery. You've got a right to ask for extensions because of whatever other things come into life. So whether that's intentional or not on part of the educator, I can't speak to that.

I'm sure there are cases where that happens, but I think it's just that natural I think my last question would be, if a complaint or a report comes in from one school district about an educator, does TSPC ever expand that investigation outside of that one school district? Like if the educator was teaching at numerous school districts over the course of their career?

It's a case-by-case basis. And I know that, or at least I have heard from the investigators that have been around in my position, is that that philosophy kind of, you know, goes through waves. Generally, my belief, and again, this is past practice for me from other agencies, is typically you try to focus on the scope of what the allegation is. And I say that from the standpoint of if somebody raised a concern about you, Katie, and now I start digging into all your past employers and things you may have done at another employer. Does that truly impact this allegation that's been brought forward that I'm looking to at the moment, or am I looking for as much mud as I can to try to paint Katie in a bad light? And so my guidance and my personal belief is that as investigators, Our role is to look at that allegation. What is that allegation? Let's try to stay focused on that allegation, and we're supposed to be neutral and unbiased. You know, the investigator's role is not to make a determination; they're to gather the facts and give it to me. I then have to try to make a determination and give a report to the commission, again being as unbiased as possible so they can make an appropriate decision.

And the concerns is if you start expanding that scope. How much am I digging and finding and including in a report that might bias them against you or any educator that we're investigating? So it's a fine line. It's tough to say it again. It's that case by case. But my guidance generally in the past has been, and what I'm going for, for my time here is let's focus on the allegations. Now, if as part of that you find out, hey, there's this super serious allegation over here that hasn't been looked at, Then absolutely, let's bring that in. But if it's, hey, you didn't call in, you didn't call in sick a couple of times or follow appropriate procedural notice, is that really gross? Is that important to this investigation of sexual misconduct? Or are we just biasing the reader, the commission, whomever against this person because they did all of these other negative things?

That makes sense of how do you preserve the educators, like legal right to due process, and also what research shows about boundary crossing and educator sexual misconduct. It can be all these sort of separate instances, and when you put them together, there's a pattern of behavior.

TSPC is one of the only places that keeps these records after 10 years, so that's a very important job.

For sure. And, and Honestly, my opinion is Oregon is a pretty good state when it comes to transparency and public records. And that's obviously my role at the moment is to try to provide everything I can provide when you're asking or whoever asks.

So.

Thank you so much for listening to Not Just a Terrible Story. We are an independent production. You can support us by sharing this podcast with a friend and leaving a 5-star review will wherever you are listening right now. Or hop over to our Substack, terriblestory.substack.com. There's a lot of great free stuff over there— archival photos, resources, and stories that didn't make it into the show. And you can also get early and ad-free episodes as a paid subscriber. To get in touch, send us an email at terriblestorypodcast@gmail.com. This podcast was created and produced by Katie Klein and me, your host, Sydney Gladu. Show art by Casey Original music by Sean Simmons. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions. Maria Palaiologos is our strategic growth advisor. Support provided by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. And a very special thank you to Stacy Love, whose bravery, honesty, and determination made this series possible. May her truth-telling give others permission to trust their own stories, use their voices, voices and know that they are not alone. If you or anyone you know is experiencing sexual violence and needs help, please visit rainn.org. That's R-A-I-N-N dot O-R-G. Or call the National Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE or text HOPE to 64673.

If you'd like to learn more about educator sexual misconduct, check out the show notes for additional resources. Hey, it's Sydney. I wanted to tell you about a show I love. Well, 2 shows I love: Frozen Files and Ice Cold Case. Both are the brainchild of journalist and podcaster Madison McGee. For Madison, covering unsolved cases is personal. Her father was murdered when she was 6 years old, And his case is still unsolved. In her limited series, Ice Cold Case, Madison investigates his murder herself, bringing listeners into the interviews, family conversations, and frustrating roadblocks she encountered along the way. After you finish Ice Cold Case, check out her weekly show, Frozen Files. In each episode, Madison walks you through the evidence, the unanswered questions, and the decisions that deserve a closer look, without ever losing sight of the people affected. Find Ice Cold Case and Frozen Files wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes of Frozen Files drop every Monday.