A North Texas principal received a one-year suspension of her educator certificate for failing to report a teacher accused of grooming girls in his 4th-grade class. The teacher was later charged with a double murder in Arkansas, where he had moved for a new teaching job.
Heather Shorter was the principal of Donald Elementary in the Lewisville Independent School District when parents reported teacher Andrew McGann for inappropriate behavior toward female students.
McGann, now 29, had been hired by Lewisville ISD for the 2022-23 school year. It was the first Texas teaching job for the young educator from Oklahoma.
He was placed on administrative leave in the spring of 2023 following the misconduct allegations, which parents recognized as sexual grooming targeting “special girls.”
Shorter described them as “complaints of poor classroom management and poor professional judgment,” and told families that an “internal investigation” revealed “no evidence of inappropriate behavior with students.”
Still, McGann was allowed to resign in May 2023.
Shorter never reported McGann’s alleged misconduct to the Texas Education Agency, and he continued to receive teaching jobs in states where he held professional credentials: Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
In July 2025, McGann was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in the stabbing deaths of Cristen and Clinton Brink at Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas, while they were hiking with their 7- and 9-year-old daughters. The girls, who were the same age as students McGann is accused of grooming, escaped unharmed.
Arkansas State Police said McGann made statements indicating he had committed the two homicides, but he later entered a plea of not guilty. He never began the teaching job that had prompted his move to Arkansas.
McGann’s trial is set for March 29, 2027. The death penalty is on the table. He is being held without bond at the Washington County Detention Center.
Meanwhile, the State Board for Educator Certification suspended Shorter’s credentials for one year, from August 5, 2026, until August 5, 2027. Shorter was also added to the state’s Do Not Hire Registry.
Shorter, 39, was certified as a teacher in 2009 and as a principal in 2015. She worked for Lewisville ISD for more than 15 years, as a teacher, an assistant principal, and as principal of Donald Elementary starting in 2020.
Donald Elementary parents and staff reportedly had issues with Shorter before she minimized McGann’s misconduct in 2023, with one mom estimating that nearly half the school’s teachers left at the end of the 2021-22 year.
In December 2024, Lewisville ISD trustees voted to close five elementary schools in the district at the end of the school year due to declining enrollment. Donald Elementary was not among them.
Shorter left the district in June 2025. Her LinkedIn page touts her experience “building trust” and “improving systems and culture.”
Lewisville ISD mom Sierra Marcum, whose son was in McGann’s class, posted to social media following the teacher’s arrest that his inappropriate behavior toward “several little girls” was reported to Principal Shorter, yet he was allowed to resign without consequences and continued to teach in other districts.
Marcum wrote that finding out McGann was arrested for killing a couple in front of their two young daughters was “horrifying,” and “the fact that there were warning signs and he was continually allowed around children is a travesty.”
Texas legislators strengthened educator misconduct reporting laws in 2025. Senate Bill 571, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and took effect in June 2025, added “inappropriate communication or boundary violations” as educator misconduct that must be reported to the TEA.
SB 571 also mandated that educators arrested for certain serious crimes have their certifications indefinitely suspended and be placed on Do Not Hire status until the criminal cases against them are finally resolved. McGann’s certificate was indefinitely suspended and he was placed on the DNHR in September 2025.
The TEA’s Educator Misconduct Reporting Dashboard, another product of SB 571, shows the agency is currently investigating 238 complaints of failure to report and opening an average of 22 new cases each month.
