Houston school district employees have been charged for their alleged involvement in a criminal venture that helped hundreds of aspiring teachers cheat on certification exams.
Three Houston Independent School District (HISD) employees, including Booker T. Washington High School basketball coach Vincent Grayson, were charged with helping hundreds of people to fraudulently obtain teacher licenses in a scheme that netted nearly $1 million, Harris County prosecutors announced Monday.
Prosecutors described Grayson as the operation's "organizer and kingpin," charging around $2,500 per participant and facilitating fraudulent certification for as many as 400 people since 2020, the Texas Tribune reported.
His alleged co-conspirators, which include HISD employees Nicholas Newton and LaShonda Roberts, also profited from the illegal operation. Newton, a Washington High assistant principal who confessed when caught, allegedly took tests on behalf of clients and earned more than $188,000.
Roberts, reportedly a special education chair at Yates High, is accused of recruiting 90 teachers and collecting around $267,000.
The scheme involved test-takers traveling from distant Texas cities to Houston, where Grayson coordinated with Tywana Mason, a staffer at the Houston Training & Education Center, to allow the cheating.
"To me, the damage is not just to the education system, which is under great duress right now," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told the Texas Tribune. "It's actually to the families of the children who go to those schools, who trust the government to educate their kids and keep them safe for eight hours a day."
Investigators suspect hundreds of teachers may still be employed with fraudulently obtained licenses, with HISD now working to identify any implicated district employees.
All five defendants face felony charges for engaging in organized criminal activity.
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