The Delaware Auditor of Accounts (AOA) releases a special report on teacher licensure following reporting by Delaware Online/The News Journal that found more than 450 educators in Delaware were working with expired or missing licenses as of March 5, 2025.
State Auditor Lydia York says while the 450 figure is fluid given the day, it still prompted her office to team up with the Delaware Department of Education (DOE) to better understand the problem.
York opted to examine licensing practices for Delaware educators with a Special Education Certificate for this initial investigation.
“We wanted to focus specifically on special education because they are a limited subset of the full population of people who are identified, and it was easier for us to do that quickly. And then the special education teachers are dealing with a population with very specific and greatest instructional needs," she explained.
Her office found that as of June 25, 2025, 62 educators with Special Education Certificates have been employed by local education agencies without proper licensing.
AOA identified nine educators void entirely of teaching licenses and noted four of those identified are teaching Special Education classes.
York and her team also found 10 educators did not hold a valid certificate aligned with both the academic subject and grade level for their currently held teaching position for the 2024-2025 academic school year and 10 educators who did not hold a valid certificate aligned with the Special Education requirements for their currently held teaching position.
Based on the findings, York says its clear teaching credentialing and verification practices warrant closer scrutiny in the First State.
“What we really learned is there's still some gaps in this system and we're going to be working with DOE over the next months and months, I would imagine, to sort of figure out how to make it a better system, to make it a more accurate system, a more current system," York said.
The auditor explains individual teachers are notified at least four times prior to their license expiring, starting at 180 days, but she raised concerns over school districts being notified of improper licensure and then not following up with the individual teachers, as well as a lack of sanctions for those who fall out of compliance.
At the end of this year's legislative session in June, lawmaker pass House Bill 97 in an effort to address some of these issues.
The legislation makes it illegal for a public school employee to work directly with students unsupervised without a valid permit or license issued by the DOE’s Professional Standards Boards or another approved license and allows DOE to claw back state funds paid to improperly credentialed educators.
It also creates a new permit requirement for any paraprofessional or student support and classroom position, including specialist interns, year-long residents, full time substitute teachers, substitute teachers seeking certification, student teachers and classroom aides.
“Recent events have made it crystal clear: Delaware’s educator licensing processes are long overdue for reform,” Delaware Secretary of Education Cindy Marten said in a statement. "That’s why the Department of Education and the Professional Standards Board partnered closely with Representative Kim Williams and the General Assembly this year to pass House Bill 97—legislation that empowers the state to impose financial penalties when licensure requirements are ignored or not followed."
The bill has not yet been signed into law by the governor, but if he does give the go ahead, the new changes must go into effect either one year from the date of his signature or notice that final regulations to implement the bill have been adopted — whichever comes first.
"I think we would all benefit from knowing more about this area so that we can— did we just happen to find a problem just because they’re special education teachers? Or is this gap that we think that we seem to have stumbled across, is that actually more systemic in its nature?" York said.
The auditor says an additional report with a larger sample of general education teachers can be expected in the future to better understand how deep the licensing issues run.
