Federal officials have launched a major initiative to protect students, enforce accountability, and restore transparency in public schools across North Texas.
Project Safe Schools, unveiled Tuesday in Dallas, involves collaborations among federal, state, and local authorities.
“We are taking this step because the problem is clear and urgent,” said Ryan Raybould, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. “Educator misconduct is widespread, and too many public school administrators in North Texas ISDs are failing to report, investigate, and stop abuse.”
Raybould noted that in the last two years, the Texas Education Agency has opened more than 9,720 educator misconduct investigations, resulting in more than 590 disciplinary actions, and at least 480 educators have been put on the state’s Do Not Hire Registry.
“Yet districts continue to underreport abuse, conceal teacher misconduct, submit misleading information, and allow problematic educators to move from campus to campus and district to district”—a practice known as “passing the trash.”
“That practice puts children at risk, it violates federal grant conditions, and it ends today,” said Raybould.
In July, the U.S. Department of Education announced a federal crackdown on passing the trash and threatened to withhold federal funding from districts caught engaging in the practice.
Raybould said if schools are systematically hurting kids, “you bet we’re going to take away their federal funding.”
Project Safe Schools brings together federal, state, and local partners—including the Texas Rangers and district attorneys—using False Claims Act enforcement and criminal prosecutions to hold districts and administrators accountable.
“The culture of silence surrounding misconduct in North Texas public schools is over,” added Raybould.
Forney ISD and Passing the Trash
Raybould also announced two enforcement initiatives resulting from a multi-agency investigation into student abuse and passing the trash in the Forney Independent School District.
The first is a civil False Claims Act settlement agreement with Forney ISD for misleading representations in the district’s applications for federal special education funding.
The second involves criminal wire fraud charges filed against now-former Forney ISD principal Wendy Bailey and special education teacher Michael Roell, also known as Johnathan Michael.
“These are not allegations of negligence; they are allegations of deception, and they illustrate exactly how passing the trash operates inside real North Texas schools,” said Raybould.
Raybould said Forney ISD was just the latest of many systemic failures found in North Texas schools.
“For too long, misconduct in North Texas public school districts has been ignored or dismissed as isolated. Additionally, school districts have not been held accountable. That era is over,” he said. “When ISDs violate federal grant conditions … or fail to report abuse, which they’re required to do, we will act.”
“Collaboration across agencies is important for initiatives like this that aim to protect the integrity of federal funding programs intended to help the public,” said Ryan Gregg, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the General Services Administration Office of the Inspector General.
“GSA OIG remains committed to fighting fraud and protecting American taxpayer dollars,” said Gregg. “We’re ready to contribute our expertise and capabilities to the Project Safe Schools Initiative, and we look forward to working with our partners to support it.”
Raybould added that North Texas ISDs must follow mandatory reporting laws, ensure accurate federal certifications, and stop the practice of passing the trash. “This office will enforce the law using civil and criminal tools, and appropriately consider voluntary self-disclosures that are timely and the ISDs are cooperative.”
Voluntary Self-Disclosures
Project Safe Schools also includes a voluntary self-disclosure pathway for North Texas ISDs that knowingly ignored mandatory reporting while certifying compliance to the federal government within the last five years.
“To every superintendent, principal, teacher, school board member, and staff member in North Texas, if you know of misconduct that has been concealed or unreported, come to us now,” said Raybould.
Let me be clear: Project Safe Schools is already investigating multiple public school districts all across North Texas, and we are moving forward very quickly. And we expect districts to come to the table in the same way. The safest path is to come forward now.
Districts that fail to voluntarily disclose misconduct face harsher penalties, including treble damages.
Project Safe Schools Partners
Also at the press conference were representatives from the Dallas offices of the FBI and Homeland Security, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Rangers, the Texas Education Agency’s Inspector General for Educator Misconduct, and the Kaufman County District Attorney.
Raybould called TEA Inspector General Levi Fuller “a fantastic partner” and said the partnership is “good for Texas and good for protecting kids.”
Partners in other regions and states may soon join the initiative.
The TEA launched a new Student Protection Resource Center earlier this year and is currently investigating more than 12,000 educator misconduct complaints.
Texas Scorecard has reported on hundreds of Texas school employees accused of sex crimes involving students and other children and maintains a map of known educator sexual misconduct arrests.
