Teacher License Fee Fight

It wasn't in the lesson plan, but local teachers are digging deeper into their own pockets to teach. Most are having a hard time adding up their new licensing fees. According to the Dayton Education Association, the new teacher license fees are simply unfair and astronomical.

"You know, I wrote a little letter to the ode said that I thought that Ohio has become a hostile environment for teachers."

Pat Lynch says teachers are already under the gun to improve grades and test scores. However, before they can get into the classroom, they have to pay for their teachers license. It's something Lynch says used to be affordable.

"So over the five years it was 60 dollars, now it's five years 200 dollars, a 233% increase."

Lynch says the Ohio Department of Education didn't give teachers any notice the fees were going up so quickly.

"My biggest problem with it, first of all, it was a stealth deal. No one had heard anything about it, rates going up until close to the end of February and March first was the date that they were going up."

The main reason behind the increase -- background checks, performed by law enforcement for the ODE. Lynch believes, and Carl Wick from the ODE agrees, it's using the extra money to offset costs.

"I'm not happy about it either but we had no alternative because state laws require that we recover all operating expenses associated with a license granting agency."

Carl Wick, an at large member of the ODE says the state must process new licenses in a timely manner. Plus, it was forced to raise fees after Governor Ted Strickland asked them to cut 100-million dollars from their budget. Lynch wonders why the ODE couldn't wait until a later date to slap the increase on educators.

"And the problem was that if we delay it, all of their requests for new licenses or renewing licenses would be delayed because we wouldn't have had adequate resources and money to be able to process those."

The new license fees are for all Ohio teachers. Only three other states have higher licensing fees...New Jersey, Hawaii and New Hampshire. Turn To 2 has also found a new bill that was introduced in the Ohio house. It's House Bill 507. If passed, the legislation would allow teachers to pay license renewal fees in annual installments and to allow a refundable credit against the income tax for educator licensing fees and educator-paid criminal records check fees.