Two years after hushing up a bus driver’s sexual abuse of two elementary school girls, Prosper Independent School District Superintendent Holly Ferguson is under investigation by the Texas Education Agency.
TEA won’t reveal details due to “anticipated litigation” but provided one document that links their investigation to Ferguson’s role in the district’s 2022 sex abuse scandal and coverup.
The agency declined to provide additional documents about the investigation as requested by Texas Scorecard, instead asking the attorney general for permission to withhold the information.
But a TEA attorney did confirm their probe is related to “an open investigation of allegations that an educator engaged in inappropriate conduct,” which is the subject of “anticipated litigation.”
Information obtained by a parent in the district shows that TEA received a “failure to report” complaint about Ferguson on March 1, 2024, and opened an investigation on April 10.
Ferguson was superintendent during the 2021-22 school year when bus driver Frank Paniagua was accused of sexually molesting two Rucker Elementary students for months without any school staff noticing.
As superintendent, she also oversaw the coverup of Paniagua’s May 2022 arrest on charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child.
Ferguson hid Paniagua’s arrest from families of other children who rode his bus.
She also failed to report the now-deceased driver to the State Board for Educator Certification as required by law—an offense for which she could lose her superintendent certificate and face criminal penalties.
No one in the district has ever been held accountable for the abuse or coverup.
Instead, Prosper ISD’s elected board of trustees voted in January 2023 to extend Ferguson’s five-year contract and give her a $40,000 raise—from $310,000 to $350,000—plus a $40,000 bonus.
Ferguson is now one of the highest-paid school superintendents in Texas.
One of the trustees who approved Ferguson’s contract and raise, Bill Beavers, also voted against hiring an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation of Ferguson’s role in the scandal. Proper ISD voters just re-elected Beavers to the school board.
Despite Beavers’ objection, an investigation was conducted, and trustees chose to withhold the results from the public due to pending litigation against the district and Ferguson by the abuse victims’ family.
The only document TEA released related to its investigation of Ferguson is a September 2022 Facebook post from Prosper ISD Trustee Garrett Linker about the abuse and coverup allegations, in which he concluded, “It’s never wrong to do the right thing.”
To this day, no one has done “the right thing” by Prosper ISD parents whose students were exposed to a child molester, and no one in the district has been held accountable for the sexual abuse or the coverup by Superintendent Holly Ferguson and other district officials.
Past Coverage of Prosper ISD’s Sex Abuse Scandal:
8-26-22: Lawsuit Claims Prosper ISD Hushed Up Sexual Assaults by Bus Driver
8-30-22: Prosper Parents Unleash on School Board Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up, Demand Superintendent Resign
9-5-22: Prosper School Board’s Response to Sex Abuse Cover-Up ‘Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test’
9-8-22: Prosper ISD Trustee Speaks About School Board’s Response to Sex Abuse Cover-up
9-10-22: Petition Demands ‘Independent Investigation’ of Prosper ISD Sex Abuse Cover-Up Scandal
9-12-22: Parents Say Prosper ISD Never Told Them About Sex Abuse Allegations
9-14-22: Prosper ISD Parents Again Demand Accountability for Sex Abuse Cover-up
9-16-22: Prosper ISD Superintendent Caught Cutting 1 Trustee From Email About Sex Abuse Scandal
9-20-22: Parents Protest Prosper ISD’s Sex Abuse Cover-up
9-22-22: Prosper ISD Responds to Lawsuit over Students Sexually Abused by Bus Driver
12-21-22: Prosper ISD Parents Await Report on Sex Abuse Scandal and Cover-up While Superintendent Job Hunts
1-23-23: Will New Details About Sex Abuse Scandal Impact Prosper Superintendent’s New Contract?
1-25-23: Prosper ISD Board Gives Scandal-plagued Superintendent a Vote of Confidence
2-7-23: Scandals Cloud Prosper ISD’s Quest for a New Trustee
3-1-23: Where’s the ‘Independent Investigation’ on Prosper ISD’s Sex Abuse Scandal and Cover-up?
4-4-23: Scandal-plagued Prosper ISD Superintendent’s Contract ‘Not Finalized’
5-29-23: One Year Later: A Prosper Mom’s Story
