The Portland teachers union has signaled to its members that it won't change its teachers contract despite pressure in light of a scathing investigative report.

Last week, independent investigators called out provisions in the teacher contract as one of the factors that helped educator Mitch Whitehurst dodge repeated allegations of sexual misconduct throughout his 32-year career.

But union president Suzanne Cohen wrote to all Portland Association of Teachers members Friday that Portland Public Schools administrators' failure to show initiative and follow discipline procedures, not contract provisions, led to that debacle.

The union statement to members was more detailed than a press release the union issued, which merely said the union was horrified by conduct detailed in the report and that the union "will make every effort to work with the district moving forward to ensure that every allegation is properly and fairly investigated in a timely fashion. This is something we believe in very strongly."

That statement did not weigh in on the determination that some contract provisions endangered students. The missive to union members, however, was clear that union leadership disagreed the contract shared any responsibility.

"The problem in PPS isn't the PAT contract, and the problem isn't the quality of the PAT members," Cohen wrote. "The problem is that PPS has allowed a culture of irresponsibility and dysfunction to flourish among its administrative ranks. The constant acceptance by PPS of administrators who cannot follow the simplest contractual requirements related to evaluation, discipline, safety, and a myriad of other issues reinforces what we have been claiming for years and has harmed students and educators."

The Portland school board hired the investigative team last fall after an Oregonian/OregonLive August 2017 investigation, "Benefit of the Doubt: How Portland Public Schools helped an educator evade allegations of sexual misconduct."

Cohen's statement to members offers new insight from a powerful union that has resisted attempts to gather teachers' perspectives on what went wrong in regard to Whitehurst. Cohen would not speak to the investigators and last fall told The Oregonian/OregonLive she would never grant an interview about the matter and asked a reporter to stop asking for comment.

Blame, Cohen said in her statement, lies with the district's refusal to create a culture where discipline protocols are followed. If the district actually used the process in place, she said, students wouldn't be in danger.

Although investigators made sure to spotlight the contract as particularly problematic, rethinking parts of the teacher contract was not the only proposed solution offered by investigators. The report detailed a host of failures at seemingly every level of the district and offered more than a dozen suggestions to help ensure students are safe.

The district is locked into the current teacher contract through 2019, so changes won't happen unless the union is on board. Right now, the message to members is the union is averse to contractual fixes to how Portland Public Schools prevents sexual abuse.

Although the Whitehurst case is horrific, Cohen wrote, it isn't surprising as the district has long been sloppy with personnel investigations. The union, she said, will never stand in the way of "proper handling of inappropriate behavior."

"To be very clear: there is absolutely no desire to have policies in place that protect people who abuse children," the statement said. "The district failed in its responsibility to properly investigate allegations of sexual misconduct. Repeatedly, serious allegations did not even lead to opening a formal investigation."

Investigators did find that administrators avoided discipline out of a desire to avoid following protocol. That attitude, they found, was harmful and stoked a lack of accountability already embedded in district culture. Administrators told investigators shirking formal channels became the norm because of fear the union would drag out the matter or that higher ups would not support accountability efforts and thus action was risky and futile.

"Whitehurst's rights as a union member, and the anticipation that the union would fight any discipline, may have influenced the response to concerns about Mr. Whitehurst's conduct," the report says. "Repeatedly, we found evidence of the district approaching an issue with Mr. Whitehurst from the view of what they couldn't do with Mr. Whitehurst rather than what they could do to prevent him from continuing to engage in inappropriate conduct that put the safety and well-being of students at risk."

Still, in addition to faulting administrators avoidance of the process in place, investigators said some contract requirements put children at risk.

Cohen's statement didn't specifically address those recommendations other than a quick defense of recently tightened timelines on investigations. Investigators called out a mandate that administrators act on a complaint within 10 days as a tight timetable that risks a rushed investigation.

A key area that should change, investigators, said is a complex and confusing file system that is frequently purged. Per the contract, complaints that have not been vetted through extensive due process must be removed from educators' files whenever the teacher or the teacher's boss moves schools.

Cohen's statement was silent on the file-purging requirements and the profusion of file types. Both of those contract provisions can make it hard or impossible for an educator's supervisors to spot patterns of troubling conduct.

It contained plenty of strong language calling out district management.

"We are appalled to see the level of dysfunction that has put students in these situations. Though we are disgusted, sadly, we were not surprised," Cohen wrote. Her statement called administrator actions "faulty," "sloppy" and the cause of "troubling times."

"Spotty record-keeping contributed to Mr. Whitehurst avoiding formal reprimand on multiple occasions," the report said. "Better record-keeping could have led to shared knowledge about Mr. Whitehurst's career, and perhaps a different outcome."

— Bethany Barnes

Got a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Bethany: bbarnes@oregonian.com