HOUSTON – On Wednesday, KPRC 2 obtained the Texas Education Agency’s list highlighting the names of Houston-area teachers who are currently under investigation in a teacher-certification cheating scheme that allowed unqualified teachers to work in local school districts.
We first broke the news in October after Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced the indictment of five people accused of participating in the cheating scheme.
The alleged scheme, reportedly worth over a million dollars, involved falsifying credentials to secure teaching positions for individuals who did not meet certification requirements, according to the district attorney’s office.
The bombshell scandal began writing a new chapter on Wednesday as the TEA revealed the names of 103 teachers the agency says did not earn proper certification.
On Thursday, KPRC 2 Investigates began examining if the teachers involved could eventually end up in a Texas prison. The reason? The issue of tampering with a government record is at the center of the operation according to investigators.
“Well under Texas law, we have tampering with a governmental record in the penal code and it has a specific carve out for education records and license issues for teachers,” said Chris Tritico.
Tritico, who represents thousands of Houston-area teachers as the union’s attorney, says the alleged acts could rise to a third-degree felony. This means teachers who knowingly obtained fake teaching certifications could end up in a Texas prison. The justification is the alleged fake process of certification combined with the fact that the certificates were then used to land a position on campus.
“A conviction of a third-degree felony, including a deferred or anything like that is a career killer,” said Tritico.
The KPRC 2 Investigates team traveled to homes in parts of Fort Bend, Brazoria and Harris County to get the side of the story from some of the teachers listed. No one was available. Meanwhile multiple schools districts tell us they are aware of the names listed and that either some of the teachers have already left their district or remain under investigation. However, none we connected with currently have their own police department investigating the matter.
This all comes at a time when it is not clear as to how deep the Harris County DA’s office is going with their investigation.
“I don’t know how any elected district attorney can just turn a blind eye to a case this big with this many players and this many parties, so I would expect there will be some investigation. Whether or not that will result in indictments we don’t know,” said Tritico.
It is important to note current Harris County DA Kim Ogg will only be in office for a few more weeks. After the new year, the investigation will then become the responsibility of new DA Sean Teare.
