UPDATED February 20.
Trustees in two scandal-plagued North Texas school districts—Celina and Prosper—have withdrawn their re-election bids after previously filing to run in the May 2 elections.
In Celina Independent School District, School Board President Jeff Gravley is no longer seeking re-election after serving 15 years as a trustee.
Gravley had filed to run again for his Place 3 seat but withdrew after the February 13 filing deadline.
He was first elected to the board in 2011.
Last year, Celina ISD suffered a sex-abuse scandal involving locker room recordings of middle school students by the son of the district’s now-retired Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Bill Elliott—an acknowledged close personal friend of Gravley’s.
That relationship was noted as a conflict of interest in an investigative report commissioned by the district.
The district also faces multiple civil lawsuits for allegedly enabling now-former middle school coach Caleb Elliott to access students in the boys’ locker room.
Parents had called for Gravley and others to resign.
Place 3 candidates still on the ballot to replace Gravley include Cameron Riggs and Vicky Hogue. Both ran last year, and Hogue made previous runs as well.
Hogue’s husband, David Hogue, is one of three candidates running for the other seat on the ballot, Place 4. Mr. Hogue previously ran for city council.
Also running for Place 4 are incumbent Jennifer Driver, a Bobcat mom who was first elected in 2023; and Erin Norris, a Celina homeschool mom.
Both Gravley and Driver were cautioned by the third-party report for their involvement in the booster-type groups Bobcat Moms and Quarterback Club, which the investigator wrote “presents challenges for administration in ensuring that those organizations operate consistently with Board policy and District business.”
District officials declined to release any candidate filing information ahead of the deadline and, as of today, do not appear to have posted any candidate information or campaign finance documents online.
Celina’s school board election will be held on May 2, 2026.
In Prosper ISD, both incumbents have withdrawn, and the district is cancelling its May 2026 school board election as only one candidate remains for each of the two seats on the ballot.
First-term trustee Tommy Van Wolfe withdrew his candidacy for Place 5, leaving challenger Kiwi Authers as the sole Place 5 candidate and automatic winner.
Authers is a parent of Prosper graduates and a businessman whose expertise is in public school construction—a subject of recent scrutiny within the district.
Place 2 incumbent Dena Dixon, who has served on the board since 2020, also withdrew, as did teacher John Frensley and Prosper ISD parent Kevin McMahon.
Allen Rountree, a veteran and father of a Rucker Elementary student, is now the lone candidate for Place 2 and will be officially sworn in along with Authers during the Prosper ISD Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, May 18.
Rucker Elementary was the site of a sexual abuse scandal that rocked Prosper ISD when it was first revealed in August 2022. That’s when the parents of two sisters who were systematically molested by a Rucker bus driver for most of a school year sued the district and Superintendent Holly Ferguson.
The lawsuit claimed Ferguson told the victims’ mother to keep quiet “so as not to attract media attention to her family or Prosper ISD staff.”
No one in the district has ever been held accountable, and the elected trustees have continued to employ Ferguson as superintendent.
Frensley’s daughter was a Rucker student who rode a bus driven by Frank Paniagua the year before he was caught.
