In September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested the district's former superintendent, Ian Andre Roberts (pictured above), an illegal immigrant from Guyana and was found in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a fixed-blade hunting knife.
The Des Moines Register has since reported that Roberts never earned the doctoral degree he frequently claimed to have and that he presented a "likely forged transcript" related to his Morgan State credentials.
In the days immediately following his arrest, DMPS filed a lawsuit against JG Consulting, the education-focused firm the district used in its search for superintendent candidates.
The outside counsel DMPS has hired to investigate the situation just released a report saying the district is not to blame.
"It's hardly a surprise that the report conducted by the people hired by the school board says the school board acted with appropriate due diligence," responds Jeff Stein, an Iowa radio personality. "That's from a legal perspective."
He says JG Consulting is well known for recruiting candidates that assist diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives – "a diverse pool of candidate," in their words.
"I still think it is fair to say that those on the board had an idea of what they would like to see in the next superintendent of schools back in 2023," Stein continues. "They either did not look hard enough or strongly enough at some of the red flags, or they were just very happy to let the consulting firm present a candidate that fit what they wanted."
He says they did not ask enough questions about Roberts' discrepancies when that could have prevented an "extremely wrenching period of time for the district."
An interim superintendent (Matt Smith) has been named, but even with the salary and the opportunities of the position, Stein thinks DMPS will have a difficult time finding a full-time replacement to "come into a situation like this."
He advises the district to be "very careful about this hire in the wake of what has happened."
