Superintendent Miles fires 15 people in athletic dept

[LibraryLady]

In a sweeping crackdown, the Dallas school district fired its athletic director, two top basketball coaches and 12 others Friday in a sports recruiting scandal.

Superintendent Mike Miles announced the dismissals, saying an internal investigation found that coaches fabricated student residency documents to get star athletes from other parts of town to play at DISD high schools.

“Despite strong efforts to put safeguards in place, violations have continued to occur. This is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Miles said.

Miles didn’t identify the 15, but district officials familiar with the case said they included athletic director Jeff Johnson, coach Roderick Johnson from Madison High School and coach John Burley from Wilmer-Hutchins High. The scandal could also cost Madison its 2014 state championship title.

Calls to the coaches and athletics director were not returned Friday. Goree Johnson told KDFW/Channel 4: "I don't think it's right. I've been loyal to the district, I've worked hard for this district, and for someone to just call me in and tell me I'm terminated."

The investigation was triggered by the beating death March 24 of Wilmer-Hutchins basketball player Troy Causey, who lived in a southeast Dallas home with top Madison player Johnathan Turner. Turner was arrested in the killing and charged with murder.

Neither athlete was living with his family in the home on Cinnamon Oaks Drive. The residence isn’t in the Madison attendance zone, and while it is within the Wilmer-Hutchins boundary, Causey had moved there from Richardson ISD. The University Interscholastic League prohibits students from playing for high schools outside their attendance zones.

The investigation was launched by DISD’s Professional Standards Office. Miles said Friday that it will continue.

It’s not the first time Dallas ISD coaches have been accused of illegally recruiting athletes to play on their teams. South Oak Cliff High School forfeited its 2005 and 2006 basketball titles for having an ineligible player. However, none of DISD’s previous recruiting investigations resulted in the steps taken Friday.

“The actions we are taking today reflects how serious the situation is,” Miles said.

Turner led the Madison Trojans to the 2013 and 2014 Class 3A state championships and was selected to the all-tournament team this year. But while his classmates were celebrating the last day of the school year on Friday, he was in the Dallas County jail, where he’s being held in lieu of $250,000 bond. He’s accused of killing Causey during a fight over a video game.

After the killing, Causey’s mother, Tammy Simpson, said that Burley improperly recruited her son while he was at a residential facility for young offenders on an assault charge. Burley arranged for Causey to attend Wilmer-Hutchins even though he lived in Richardson ISD, she said.

The investigation found that Causey and Turner were not eligible to play for those teams, sources said.

Their coaches, Burley and Roderick Johnson, had been on administrative leave since the investigation started. A third coach who was on leave, Conrad High School assistant football coach Broderick Sublet, was also fired Friday, according to DISD officials. He was accused of improperly sharing student records.

The district’s investigation expanded from Wilmer-Hutchins to Madison and then to other DISD high schools. Investigators confiscated computers, documents and other records from several schools and departments. They are continuing to review practices at the rest of DISD’s high schools.

“This day is kind of bittersweet because my son is not here and this does not bring him back,” Simpson said Friday. “But I’m feeling a lot of redemption for other parents, because I know we are not the only ones who’ve gone through this.”

Since Miles came to Dallas ISD in 2012, he has increased scrutiny on coaches and assistant coaches. A few months into his job, Miles ordered the coaches to work a full eight-hour day. The district found that some coaches, who were initially hired as teacher assistants and other roles, were spending more time coaching than working in their hired role.

A Dallas ISD investigation in 2012 found a “concerted attempt” by coaches and administrators to recruit athletes from other parts of DISD and surrounding school districts. That report found that Kimball High School recruited star basketball player Keith Frazier before the season started in 2011. Kimball won the state championship that season. Frazier now plays at Southern Methodist University.

After that investigation, Miles called every high school principal and athletic coach to a meeting to voice his concerns about the report’s findings. He implored them to raise the level of integrity in athletics and said violations would not be tolerated.

The district also started requiring coaches to make visits to the players’ homes to verify that they lived there and document it in a report for the athletic department. The district’s latest investigation found that, in some cases, the coaches never visited the students’ homes but turned in residency documents saying they had, sources said.

The investigation found the athletic department administrators didn’t falsify the documents but failed to oversee the process and make sure the residency documents were legitimate, sources said.

District officials said most of the fired employees were coaches and assistant coaches directly implicated in the recruiting scandal. Also fired were assistant athletic directors Marian Willard and Goree Johnson, officials said.

Willard joined the athletic department this year after the district tried to fire her when she was the principal at Madison in 2012-13. Willard, a beloved principal who has strong support from some trustees, successfully challenged the termination and received the new role.

Goree Johnson, who joined DISD in 1986, is the father of Roderick Johnson, the Madison coach. Another son, Royce Johnson, is the Kimball High School basketball coach. He was not a focus in the district’s investigation. Athletic director Jeff Johnson, who is unrelated, joined DISD in 1983.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20140606-dallas-isd-athletic-director-coaches-fired-in-recruiting-scandal.ece

[LibraryLady]

News showed one of the men who was fired saying, "I don't know why I was fired."

I guess he didn't comprehend when Miles said, "No more unethical behavior."

I think it is about time the hammer came down on the illegal recruiting that has been common in DISD.

[Stanwood]

Teaching kids to cheat. What could go wrong?

[Cowman52]

Ethics in coaching is slightly behind winning. You check on head coaches who have a teaching class in Texas and most have only a less than strenuous schedule.

[bodine]

How long has it been since DISD had an effective superintendent who would actually hold coaches responsible for UIL rules?

But, what the heck were those parents thinking? They knew it was wrong, but I guess district championships; state championships; and college scholarships are more important than doing things the right way.

TEA needs to take away teaching certificates of the coaches involved; or at least suspend them so they cannot work as teachers for a while....