DMPS Superintendent College History

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Ian Roberts saga continues in Des Moines, and this
is getting louder and louder from a national level about
this guy and the things that are purported to have
actually happened. So for those who have not paid attention
or seemingly or maybe under a rock or something, Ian Roberts,

(00:24):
formerly known by many as doctor Ian Roberts, was the
superintendent for the Moines Public School District starting in the
summer of twenty twenty three until today. Technically he was
a long time and very just renowned guy as a

(00:50):
true how do I say this because a lot of
this is like I have to question it. Everybody said
he was a good guy. Everybody's said he did his
job very well. Everybody liked what he was doing for
the Wyne Public School District. But we've learned Friday he
was detained by Ice, and when you're detained by Ice,
that means well, there had to have been some order
for him to be removed from the country. Ice rules,

(01:14):
you know, goes ahead and says, hey, yeah, here's the
press release. This guy was ordered to be removed from
this country in May of twenty twenty four, which is
last year. While Biden was in office. He ends up
in April of twenty twenty five trying to reopen his
immigration case in Dallas. A judge denies that motion. He's

(01:36):
ordered to remove all of the United States. He's from
Guyana and everything before that comes into question because he
went to college in multiple places, and in fact, we
were listing like four or five different places he went
to college. There's more than that. There's more than that.
He was reported to be fifty one or fifty two
years old from what we knew. Turns out he's fifty

(01:57):
four years old. We now have that up. He's apparently
lied about his birthday. I don't know where he's getting
Social Security numbers, and he's been he overstayed what was
a work visa which is purported to have expired sometime
in the twenty nineteen twenty twenty area. Nobody knew this,
And again, I hate being this guy, but I'm also

(02:19):
going to try to give some grace to the Des
Moines Public School District because they are far from the
only people that fell for it from this guy. And
they hire a consulting firm, and the consulting firm hires
a background check agency to dig into the possible candidates
and their job. Essentially, after they pay for that to

(02:39):
be done, they interview the candidates and decide which one
makes the most sense for them. This is not this
is not one of those situations where they handpicked this
guy because he fits a certain profile person they're looking for.
They if it didn't show up on a background check,
there was no reason for the Moyn Public School District
to know anything about his immigration status. Now, a lot

(03:02):
of people came to his defense. The things that we
were trying to figure out is why did he run
from Ice when they identified themselves to him, and then
after they identified themselves, they tracked him down after a chase.
He has a school issued vehicle and inside the school
issued vehicle there is a loaded handgun, a knife, and
three thousand dollars in cash. Now, you could tell me

(03:24):
that you can explain some of this stuff for one
reason or another, but it just is a little bit
peculiar for a man who was the superintendent of a
school district to be carrying that stuff in a school
issued vehicle. We mentioned the situation with the timeline of this.
This was not a recent order for his removal. This

(03:46):
occurred a year and a half ago. Almost Now here's
the twist. Today. On Friday, there was an emergency meeting
that was put together. He was put on paid administratively
from the one public school district. After yesterday morning, there
was a the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, who give

(04:09):
licenses for people to be teachers, principles counselors, superintendents in
the state of Iowa. They revoked his license based on
his citizenship status, his immigration and citizenship status. Because not
only is all this happening, but he said on his
resume and his application he checked that he was in

(04:31):
a United States citizen. In fact, he's registered to vote
still in the state of Maryland. He's in the illegal
alien by the way, and he was still registered to
vote legally in Maryland. Somebody look into that for me,
will you? So you have this whole situation and this

(04:56):
entire debacle which has taken place. What else is this
guy lied about besides being a citizen, and that nobody
seemed to be caught onto. How about he doesn't have
the degrees he said he had, because now we're learning that. Oh,
by the way, to finish off what I was saying,
he was put on unpaid leave yesterday by the Des

(05:17):
Moines Public School District because now he's not able to
serve as a superintendent based on being his license being
revoked by the Board of Educational Examiners. But then today he,
through an attorney, has officially resigned as the superintendent of
Des Moines Public Schools. He's got his hands full. Obviously,

(05:38):
he's not going to try to stay doing this job
while on leave. There's not a lot like even if
he does win whatever this court battle is, No, there's
not going to be a triumphant return to Des Moines.
We know too much now about the stuff that he
has lied about. And for whatever it's worth, the attorney
he is being represented now says he didn't know any better.

(05:59):
His attorney that he had before gave him this information
that he was officially done with his immigration status now
again again, maybe in a court of law, you could
sell that to me and say, this guy who allegedly
has a doctorate degree and multiple master's degrees, he may

(06:24):
be fooled into having his whole situation resolved with his
immigration status. You might be able to sell that to
me in a court of law somehow. But if a
man is telling me he's got masters and doctorates which
he may not have. He's giving different birth dates on
his resumes. In his applications for jobs, he's putting down

(06:48):
social Security numbers which are certainly not his. And you're
telling me he had no idea he wasn't in this
country legally. It's gonna be a tough sell for me.
Dog now Here. There are some news. Local news in
Des Moines have done some interesting things. He lists. Ian
Roberts lists academic affiliations with seven different institutions. But when

(07:13):
he lists on his LinkedIn page his affiliations with these institutions,
he does not specify what degrees or if he earned
any degrees. He's just calling himself a doctor. Now here's
what he lists himself. He went to the Georgetown University
mcdona' School of Business in twenty twelve and twenty thirteen.

(07:34):
Georgetown University hasn't said anything yet. Harvard University Graduate School
of Education in two thousand and three. I don't know
what that means. He's there for less than a year.
He wrote that down on his LinkedIn, and I'm guessing
this would be on his resume as well. Harvard hasn't
said anything he mentioned himself as an incoming MBA candidate

(07:56):
at MIT Sloan School of Management Business twenty nine eighteen
to twenty twenty one. They haven't said anything about it,
and again, that would be a very strange timeline because
he's already serving as kind of like a superintendent of
schools at that point in Mill Creek Township over COVID.
Now Here are some schools that have said something. Morgan

(08:17):
State University November two thousand and three to November of
two thousand and seven, the Office of Public Relations did
reach out back to Iowa media and said, we can
confirm that Ian Roberts attended Morgan State University for graduate
school from fall two thousand and two until spring two
thousand and seven. While attending Morgan, he pursued a Doctor

(08:40):
of Education in Urban Educational Leadership. However, he did not
receive a degree from Morgan State University, so he was
pursuing a doctor of education. Morgan State says he did
not get that degree Saint John's University, which he attended
in nighttime teen ninety eight to two thousand and This

(09:01):
is where he would have been attending when he got
his visa. The first visa that we know about in
nineteen ninety nine. Saint John's University's Brian Brown, who's the
Associate vice president of University Communications in public Affairs, said,
I can confirm that Ian Roberts did graduate from Saint
John's University with a master's degree in social studies on

(09:23):
June fourth, two thousand. Our records only indicate a master's degree,
not a doctorate degree, as some Iowa media has reported.
And then he cites FURPA, the Family Educational Rights of
Privacy Act. So their educational records, he would have, like
Ian Roberts, would have to give them the ok to
share more records and grants them rights to access and
control the disclosure of the records. Coppin State University, where

(09:48):
he would have gone as an undergraduate student, he's in
their Athletic Hall of Fame. He attended us, according to
his Lincoln from nineteen ninety five to ninety eight. CSU
president doctor Anthony and said, over the week, and I
learned that an alumnus of Coppon State University, Ian Roberts,
was detained by us ICE in Des Moines. Doctor Roberts
is a nineteen ninety eight graduate of Coppon State University

(10:10):
and was a standout scholar and athlete during his undergraduate studies.
At this moment, we have little information regarding the particular
surrounding Robert's situation. Nevertheless, during this time of uncertainty and
anguish for his family and friends, we're keeping them in
our thoughts in prayers. So according to this, he did
do everything he said he did at Coppon State University,
including was a standout athlete. He was inducted into their

(10:33):
Athletics Hall of Fame. And of course after this he
went to the Sydney Olympics and was representing Guyana there
in track and field. Lastly, triedent University International. Dates not
provided now a student support specialist for tried at University International,
something I've never heard of before. They said this information

(10:55):
is directory and for info under FURPA, which is the
same thing. They can't release the documents. Our policy says
information the university is exitated it as directory information may
be released at the school's discretion. Our guidance is to
require a rented consent from the student to release any
information to any third party that is not specifically listed
in the policy. So tried it basically says nah we

(11:19):
are gonna be careful about this and not do anything here.
So he was also listed here a bunch of other
stuff that I'll get to when we come back. I'm
telling you, guys, this is going deeply into his resume.
Things that he has claimed that nobody apparently even bothered
to verify with the places he said he was at

(11:42):
or he did