Key legislators say a report on the frequency of teachers and administrators losing their licenses over sexual conduct involving students points to a need for more training on how to spot and promptly report incidents.

The comments followed a weekend package of stories by the Associated Press that found most public school teachers and administrators who had their licenses revoked were accused in sex cases involving students. In many cases, the men and women had relationships for months and the cases often went undetected or unreported for years.

According to educators and transcripts from some of the more than 100 cases reviewed under the state Freedom of Information Law, some teachers have been reluctant to report on colleagues. Others would only report to administrators rather than police, and some administrators hoped the offenders would resign quietly to avoid public scandal.

“I was truly astounded when I read the comments,” the Senate Education Committee chairman, Stephen Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican, said. “Certainly, the comments imply this is a continuing or recent practice … it should have stopped years ago.”

“If it requires some type of fine tuning or a better mousetrap, I’m certainly amenable,” he said.

State Senator Dean Skelos, a Long Island Republican who has been a leader in sex offender legislation in his chamber, said he will also use the data to push his bill, which would require schools to contact all parents whenever there is an allegation of sexual abuse of a student.

A professor at Hofstra University who has studied educator sexual abuse in New York and last year wrote an analysis of the scant research in the area for the U.S. Department of Education, Charol Shakeshaft, said that where one victim surfaces, there are of ten many involving the same adult. She said the best study found nearly one in 10 students nationwide are targets of “educator sexual misconduct.”

“If [schools] won’t remedy it, then the Legislature has to remedy it,” Mr. Skelos said.

The Assembly Education Committee chairman, Steven Sanders, said the state must make it clear to school employees that there is “zero tolerance” for sexual contact with students and that all employees, by law, must report clues to such relationships. The Manhattan Democrat said yesterday that he wants to work with the Republican senators to consider measures to underscore both points.

“It may be that, as a result of the report everyone read, there needs to be a reinforcing of the responsibilities that school officials have,” Mr. Sanders said. “If additional training is needed, I’m all for it.”

“There has to be the expectation that once discovered, the person engaged in the sexual misconduct will be dealt with severely. And I’m not sure that message is out there,” Mr. Sanders said. He said, for example, women employees having sex with boys is often met with “a wink and a nod.”