State Rep. Sherae’a Moore (D-Middletown) has been stripped of her title as vice chair of the House Education Committee and removed from the body entirely following controversy around her teaching licensure.
Reporting from the Delaware Online/The News Journal published on April 22 found around 400 educators, including Rep. Moore, are or were working in Delaware on expired or missing teaching licenses.
Rep. Moore says the clerical delays holding up her emergency teaching license have been remedied since the article's release.
Rep. Moore is enrolled in one of Delaware's Alternative Routes to Certification (ARTC) Programs, which allows her to receive an emergency teaching license while she is enrolled at a university that provides the necessary program coursework.
Since 2023, Rep. Moore had been working in the Appoquinimink School District as a paraeducator with a valid permit, but she was hired as a seventh grade English Language Arts special education teacher for the 2024-25 school year at Redding Middle School.
She explains on April 7, she received a letter from Wilmington University that it had finished processing her paperwork for an emergency teaching license, as well as a special education Certificate of Eligibility.
From there, she was able to submit that information to the Delaware Department of Education (DOE), and state records show her proper licenses were granted on April 30.
This timeline implies Moore was teaching without a valid license for around 8 months, which House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown (D-New Castle) says is a "breach of public trust."
"I'm not sure how parents of the children that she was teaching feel, all I know was the emails that I received, the phone calls that I received, the outcries that I've gotten, the conversations I've had in this building in both chambers — something needed to be done," Speaker Minor-Brown told Delaware Public Media. "She needs to hold herself accountable. The district needs to hold her accountable. The school needs to hold her accountable. But at the end of the day, I don't know how we can sit here and turn a blind eye to a situation where we clearly know that somebody was in a classroom teaching who should not have been in the classroom holding children's lives in their hands."
But Rep. Moore believes her removal from the committee is a coordinated political attack from Speaker Minor-Brown and House Education Chair Kim Williams (D-Stanton).
"Everything has been cleared up — I'm in compliance. So therefore, for me to be removed from this position under what that explanation is, it's falsified. And all I can [point to] is that the real reason is politically driven due to one, me not being able to be controlled and having a mind of my own, and that Rep. Williams has not been deemed the champion of education she has traditionally been. And now I have an active voice and a very relatable voice as it relates to education," Rep. Moore told Delaware Public Media.
Another piece of the puzzle, according to Speaker Minor-Brown, is an amendment floated by Rep. Moore to House Bill 97, which has passed the House and is currently moving through the legislative process in the Senate.
Introduced by Rep. Williams, House Bill 97 would ensure that a public school employee may not work directly with students unsupervised without a valid permit or license.
Williams says the bill is a response to former Brandywine School District trauma therapist John Arnold, who falsified several degrees to get hired in 2021 and pled no contest to two counts of second degree rape last month — the Delaware Department of Justice says he will be sentenced later this year and faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison.
Rep. Williams says since this incident, there have been "several troubling incidents throughout the state," which prompted her to suggest stricter licensing guidelines.
The bill would also give the state the power to claw back money from districts and charters if they intentionally retain an employee for more than 90 days after hire without a valid credential.
The bill's first hearing in the House Education Committee occurred on April 9, two days after Rep. Moore was issued her Wilmington University "welcome letter" and just two weeks before her licensure status was made public.
During the bill's hearing, Rep. Moore asked Rep. Williams if she would be open to adding an amendment to the bill that would provide extra grace to ARTC participants, explaining that sometimes it takes a university's admission's office more than 90 days to process the necessary paperwork.
DOE officials testified the "welcome letter" process generally takes three weeks and that they had not run into the problem Rep. Moore was describing.
Rep. Moore insisted she was aware of cases that took longer than 90 days, and when she asked Rep. Williams again if she would be open to an amendment, Rep. Williams responded, "At this point, I'm uncomfortable saying that because I feel like you're talking about yourself, and I'm not comfortable committing to that at this point."
Rep. Moore immediately told Williams she was not talking about herself and said that comment should not have been put in the public record.
Rep. Moore's proposed amendment was never filed with the bill, but she said she did consult with an attorney to draft one.
"I was exploring an amendment because as I brought up [in committee], the unintended consequences of this [legislation] — I talked to other HR departments — we in Delaware, we actually do have a certification issue. We're one of the few states that are left that have not revamped our certification process, and this bill does send us backwards, still making it complicated to get certification here in Delaware," Rep. Moore said.
In a statement released late Tuesday night announcing Rep. Moore's removal from the House Education Committee, Speaker Minor-Brown said: "Throughout Representative Moore’s tenure on the Education Committee, she had a platform from which to address any barriers in the educator certification process. If she believed there were flaws or inequities, she could have used her position to advocate for changes. Instead, she remained silent until she proposed an amendment to an education bill that would have personally benefited her own certification status. That action undermined the integrity of our committee process."
While Speaker Minor-Brown told Delaware Public Media she doesn't know if there was "an actual amendment" or "just [Rep. Moore] suggesting the amendment," she said she knows Rep. Moore stated that she would not support the bill without the amendment. But Rep. Moore disputes this.
“There was no conversation about an amendment. So where did she get that from? She never asked me that. So for her to put words in my mouth, that's another, again, another falsified comment coming from her," Rep. Moore said.
She went on to explain that was never asked to attend a meeting with leadership to discuss her licensure status or the amendment prior to the announcement of her removal.
She received a memo from Speaker Minor-Brown around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night that said, "After careful consideration, you are being removed from the House Education Committee as of today."
Rep. Moore sent a letter to Democratic leadership on April 14 expressing disappointment over Rep. William's comments during House Bill 97's hearing, as well as Rep. Williams lack of coordination over the two lawmaker's competing bills surrounding universal free school meals.
She requested a caucus-wide debrief on the matter to "acknowledge the harm caused and recommit to internal norms of collaboration and respect," as well as a public apology from Rep. Williams and a meeting with Democratic leadership and the involved caucus members to "chart a path forward."
Democratic House leadership responded saying they would be willing to facilitate a meeting between the House and Senate prime sponsors of the two competing free meal bills, but denied Moore's request for a public apology from Rep. Williams.
Leadership also stated while they are open to having conversations "regarding caucus processes and expectations," they would request those conversations happen directly with leadership and outside the caucus meeting setting.
Moore calls the removal from the House Education Committee “gut-wrenching” but remains an active legislator.
Rep. Williams could not be reached for comment due to the timing of this story, but Delaware Public Media is following up with the representative on Thursday.
