U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at closing long-criticized gaps in how schools track, report, and prevent educator sexual misconduct, a measure he says would create a national system designed to stop abusive school employees from quietly resurfacing in classrooms across the country.
Hunt’s National Educator Safety and Accountability Act of 2025, filed December 9, would establish a National Educator Misconduct and Discipline Registry (NEMDR) covering all schools receiving federal funding and all school employees, from teachers and coaches to contractors and volunteers.
Districts would be required to report findings of sexual misconduct, grooming behavior, boundary violations, and even resignations submitted during investigations, with a 48-hour deadline for submissions.
In an exclusive statement to The Dallas Express, Hunt said the current system, which leaves reporting and record-sharing largely to states and local districts, is failing children on a national scale.
“The fact that approximately 10–12% of students suffer sexual misconduct by school employees before graduation is unacceptable,” Hunt told The Dallas Express. “It is the responsibility of American leadership to ensure that children’s safety remains a top priority.”
Hunt added, “The lack of national reporting mechanisms and ineffective communication by school districts and state education agencies have allowed sexual predators to continually find new employment involving young children.”
What the Bill Would Do
According to the text of the bill, provided by Hunt’s office, the law is designed to:
- Create a national, uniform reporting mechanism so districts nationwide can check an applicant’s misconduct history before hiring.
- Require reporting from every school receiving federal funds to close the patchwork of state-by-state standards.
- Apply to all school employees, not just licensed educators, because some offenders fall outside state licensure systems.
- Alert hiring districts to all suspicious behavior, including grooming indicators and boundary violations, not only criminal convictions.
The bill also bans “passing the trash,” the practice of districts quietly negotiating the departure of an accused employee without disclosing misconduct to future employers. States or districts that fail to comply could lose access to certain federal education grants.
In addition to the registry, the measure would create a Federal Task Force on Educator Sexual Misconduct, jointly run by the Departments of Education and Justice, tasked with analyzing national data, identifying systemic weaknesses, and issuing annual reports to Congress.
The congressman said passing this bill is important because “No child should ever have to worry about their safety. Oversight of employment history and background checks is essential for anyone working with young children.”
Pushback from the Teachers’ Union
Both the NEA and AFT have fought legislation aimed at creating similar misconduct databases at the state level. When Florida launched its teacher misconduct database in 2007, Mark Pudlow, communications director of the Florida Education Association, said his organization was concerned that the database could give people “the potential for making more of a situation than exists,” per Education Week.
He also indicated that the databases could create confusion when people have similar names. “If you have a lot of Maria Garcias out there, it would be easy to mistake one for the other,” he said.
Texas Context
Hunt’s bill comes after numerous reports of child sexual abuse, allegedly at the hands of teachers in Texas. A former Celina ISD teacher and coach, William Caleb Elliott, 26, has faced numerous charges related to alleged invasive visual recordings of children in a bathroom, The Dallas Express reported in October. In November, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Texas charged Elliott with production of child pornography.
Hunt’s Broader Platform
Hunt, who entered the 2026 U.S. Senate race this fall, has made public safety a central theme of his campaign, previously telling The Dallas Express that “nobody is talking about safety” in the GOP primary.
Hunt faces incumbent United States Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the March 3, 2026, Republican primary.