Drivers education teacher John Bosco kept his secret from everyone, most especially from his employers.
He feared his citation for driving drunk last year would end his days as head basketball coach at Copper Hills High School, if not his teaching career.So he told no one, not his principal, not his students, not the state Office of Education. Even while his own driver's license was suspended, he taught kids how to get one for themselves.
Bosco might have gone unnoticed, because drivers education teachers in Utah are not required to report their driving records to school administrators.
They can - and many do - teach their students the rules of the road while themselves answering charges of speeding and other violations.
A Deseret News investigation of the driving records of 207 instructors in the six Wasatch Front counties revealed that 34 (16.5 percent) have at least one current moving violation on their driver's license record.
The search covered the past three years for offenses such as speeding and improper lookout and the past six years for alcohol-related citations. Utah law clears a driver's record of moving violations with the passage of those time periods, assuming no further violations occur.
Bosco was one of two instructors with a DUI citation; most others were ticketed for speeding. Only one teacher reported his ticket to the State Office of Education.
As a result of the Deseret News investigation, state education officials say they will seek new administrative rules requiring the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and the Driver License Division to report citations received by drivers education teachers.
Speeding and drunken driving
Bosco's trouble began on the night of April 4, 1996, according to court records. He had been at a party that night and was driving home in his 1995 Saturn on I-15 when a trooper clocked him at 80 mph.
Bosco pulled over at 4900 South and was behind bars less than three hours later. A booking officer at the Salt Lake County Jail noted the man was "severely drunk."
Utah Highway Patrol trooper Alex Lepley cited the coach for DUI, speeding and improper lane travel. Bosco later pleaded guilty to alcohol-related recklessness and was sentenced to serve 48 hours community service and pay a $1,000 fine. He also attended an alcohol-education class.
"I made a mistake. I'm the first to admit it. I don't condone drinking and driving. . . . I talk to my kids about it all the time. It should have never happened," Bosco told the Deseret News.
He said he hoped to keep the citation a secret "for the sake" of his students and didn't tell his principal because he wanted to forget about the incident.
"I'm ashamed of it. I'm the head basketball coach. . . . I'm in a position to be a positive influence on kids and I've worked for it for 13 years. Now, I don't know if I'll even teach."
Bosco, who agrees he should be held to a higher standard, was suspended this week from driving students enrolled in drivers education courses, said Jordan School District spokeswoman Patricia Dahl.
At least for now, he will continue teaching the rules of the road in the classroom, however, Dahl said.
"He's entitled to an investigation and to continue to work at least until it is complete," she said. "We're still trying to figure out what happened and why we didn't know about it."
While Bosco faces possible discipline, the other teachers with current speeding citations will probably receive less scrutiny.
Only five of the 34 had two citations in the past three years - a number that doesn't seem to shock officials at the State Office of Education.
"It's clear educators are examples to students and should conduct their lives accordingly. That doesn't mean they need to be paragons of virtue," said Doug Bates, director of school law for the state. "A lot of people are nailed for speeding . . . teachers are human."
Several teachers with citations contacted by the Deseret News emphasized that point.
"Just because I teach it doesn't mean I'm a perfect driver. With speeding, it's just a matter of who gets caught. I think it is kind of nit-picky to make a story of it," said Kim Nelson, an instructor at Timpanogos High School.
Don't ask, don't tell
Nonetheless, administrators are worried that they have no idea what's on the records of the state's drivers education instructors.
As it is now, teachers can get a drivers education "endorsement" and keep it, even with the worst of driving records, as long as that record remains secret. And no one at the State Office of Education is checking those records.
In order to teach drivers education, instructors are required to receive 24 quarter hours of drivers education and safety instruction. Such college courses are only taught in Utah at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.
The teachers must also pass criminal background checks, but such checks don't include a review of driver's license records, said Eileen Rencher, spokeswoman for the State Office of Education.
"It's a big hole to fill that we weren't aware of. It hasn't been an issue until now, because no one raised it," Bates said.
The State Office of Education's discretionary policy states that teachers should not have convictions that cause their own driver licenses to be suspended or revoked during a previous two-year period.
But unless such infractions are reported by the teachers, no one apparently knows. State Office of Education leaders believed the Driver License Division was reporting citations to them, because the division had a copy of the discretionary policy, Rencher said.
"I think there has been too many assumptions made in this whole process," she said.
Administrators are anxious to get rid of the "self-reporting" glitch and set some tougher standards. In fact, Bates started the process of change as soon as he learned about the results of the Deseret News inquiry.
He plans to propose administrative rules that would require the state's Bureau of Criminal Identification and the Driver License Division to report driving-related arrests and citations of drivers education teachers to the State Office of Education.
Currently, law enforcement agencies are required to report only arrests of teachers on drug and child sex-abuse charges.
Bates said he'll leave specifics of the rules to the state Board of Education but will recommend certain offenses, such as DUI, be automatic triggers for review of a case.
He wants to set the standards in rules rather than policy, as they are now, because "nobody is really bound by policy."
While the State Office of Education was not aware of most of the citations uncovered by the newspaper, one teacher told the truth from the beginning.
C. Todd Allred was a student at Southern Utah University in 1991 when he was cited for DUI by Brian Head Police. Allred was about to graduate and knew the blemish would raise questions with his potential employers.
So he told all, first to his prospective principal at Tooele High School, Larry Harrison, then to the Professional Standards Commission at the State Office of Education - the only agency with the power to review the behavior of teachers and applicants and recommend action.
Both the commission and Harrison still found Allred fit to teach.
"I had a bad time then and created some problems for myself. That's the past," Allred said.
Harrison recalls that Allred didn't hide anything during his interviews.
"Sometimes, we profit from our mistakes and I think that's what Todd did. I felt very comfortable about hiring him," said Harrison, who now works for Tooele City.
Records of Allred's appearance before the commission are not public.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Teachers with citations
Wasatch Front drivers education teachers (Davis, Salt Lake, Summit, Tooele, Utah and Weber counties) with current citations on their driver's license records:
Teacher High school Type Date MPH over
Doug A. Christensen Ben Lomond Speeding 8/95 15
Perry J. Madson Bonneville Speeding 1/96 10
Jack F. Senninger Bountiful Speeding 8/94 10
Hud R. Fullmer Bingham Speeding 9/94 20
..................................Speeding 2/95 10
Daniel E. Henderson* Bingham Speeding 6/95 15
Rodney I. Oliver Brighton Imp. lookout 5/96 n/a
John M. Bosco Copper HillsDUI, speeding 4/96 15
Verl L. Casto Copper HillsSpeeding 7/94 15
Jeffrey G. Price Copper HillsSpeeding 4/95 10
David A. Peck Cyprus Speeding 2/96 9
Bruce F. Bitner Davis Speeding 7/96 10
Gerald R. Hogge Davis Speeding 8/96 15
Wally F. Cowan East Speeding 9/95 20
David N. Price Fremont Speeding 7/94 10
Fred S. Thompson Fremont Speeding 11/95 15
Gary W. Daniels* Hillcrest Speeding 2/95 9
Alex A. Gerke Hunter Speeding 7/94 19
..................................Fail to yield 10/94 n/a
Craig H. Haslip* Jordan Speeding 4/95 14
Brad L. Hawkins Layton Speeding 9/95 20
Richard V. Price Layton Speeding 2/96 10
Louis J. Andrus Lehi Speeding 4/94 15
Robert K. Banz North SummitUnsafe op. 6/95 n/a
George C. Wilkey Ogden Speeding 11/96 15
Steven J. Downey Orem Speeding 9/96 20
Kevin T. Pedersen Provo Speeding 12/95 9
John Steven Cramblitt TaylorsvilleSpeeding 9/95 12
W. Daniel Leatherwood TaylorsvilleFail to yield 10/96 n/a
M. Kim Nelson Timpanogos Speeding 3/96 10
Cloyd Todd Allred* Tooele DUI 12/91 n/a
Ross L. Harris Viewmont Speeding 9/95 10
..................................Speeding 3/96 15
Jody M. Warren Weber Speeding 7/96 14
John D. Haning Woods Cross Speeding 7/94 9
Mark A. Pierce Woods Cross Speeding 2/95 15
Speeding 3/96 15
Chadd M. Watson Woods Cross Speeding 7/95 10
*These teachers said they were not teaching drivers education when they received their citations.