We are considering an offer on a pending case where the defendant will agree to voluntarily and permanently relinquish his teaching license. I have seen opinions where relinquishment is a valid (or at least uncontested) part of the plea bargain, so I assume that it's an option. Ex parte Beck, 541 S.W.3d 846, 848–49 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017); Shelton v. State, 2017 WL 2383014 at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] June 1, 2017, pet. ref’d).

I would like to know what this process looks like. Assuming the defendant accepts the plea bargain, what are our next steps? What are the defendant's next steps? I have done some general research, as well as some poking around in the Admin Code, Education Code, and Occupations Code. I've found the Section that authorizes SBEC to accept voluntary surrender of a certificate, but how does that surrender reach them? Letter? Email? Certified mail? What steps does SBEC take based on defendant's voluntary surrender?

Hey there! I’m a felony prosecutor whose wife happens to be an elementary principal, so I just literally read her your message and then explained what kind of documentation prosecutors generally need to be satisfied conditions of plea bargains have been met.

Her answer to me is that your local school district’s HR department knows the steps and that they are prescribed by SBEC. She thinks it may even be on-line on the SBEC website (but it sounds like you’ve looked there).

But basically your defendant is going to initiate the process with some form of written documentation to either the district’s HR or to SBEC directly, they will respond with a confirmation they received that correspondence and provide instructions for the next step, and so on until there is going to be a final documentation that he is prohibited from being licensed in Texas. She says it will all be thoroughly documented in writing throughout the process.

So the tl;dr is your local school district’s HR department will be more than happy to answer that for you! They may even have a chart that lists the steps.

Hope that helps!

This is great! Thank you so much for taking the time to look into this and reach back out. I really appreciate it.

Hey there! I’m a felony prosecutor whose wife happens to be an elementary principal, so I just literally read her your message and then explained what kind of documentation prosecutors generally need to be satisfied conditions of plea bargains have been met.

Her answer to me is that your local school district’s HR department knows the steps and that they are prescribed by SBEC. She thinks it may even be on-line on the SBEC website (but it sounds like you’ve looked there).

But basically your defendant is going to initiate the process with some form of written documentation to either the district’s HR or to SBEC directly, they will respond with a confirmation they received that correspondence and provide instructions for the next step, and so on until there is going to be a final documentation that he is prohibited from being licensed in Texas. She says it will all be thoroughly documented in writing throughout the process.

So the tl;dr is your local school district’s HR department will be more than happy to answer that for you! They may even have a chart that lists the steps.

Hope that helps!