HOUSTON — Five people are charged in connection to an alleged teaching certification cheating ring Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg referred to as a “circle of greed.”

What You Need To Know

  • Five people are charged in connection to an alleged teaching certification cheating ring in Houston 

  • Houston District Attorney Kim Ogg said the accused netted at least $1 million 

  • According to Ogg, the scheme involved the accused taking certification tests for teacher candidates for a fee 

  • The scheme stretches back to at least May 2020, Ogg said

During a news conference on Monday announcing the charges, Ogg said that the five are accused of running a fraudulent teacher certification testing scheme. Essentially, Ogg said, money was collected from aspiring teachers and that one of the accused, a proxy, would take the test for them in Houston with the aid of “corrupt testing proctor.”

Ogg said the scheme netted the accused at least $1 million.

Ogg said the investigation shows the scheme goes back to May 2020, the beginning of COVID lockdowns, and more than 200 current and former teachers were fraudulently certified. All of them are or were working as teachers in Texas public schools in districts across the state, Ogg said.

Ogg added that two of the teachers certified fraudulently are sexual predators who gained access to students via the testing scheme.

Assistant Harris County District Attorney Mike Levine, who worked on the case for more than a year, said the scheme came to light when the Texas Education Agency noticed irregularities at Houston’s Training and Education Center, or HTECH. 

HTECH is an approved location for teacher candidates to take the certification test. 

Levine said candidates would drive for hours in order to take the test in Houston.

“Numerous teacher certification candidates seemed to fit the same criteria, where they would drive from far-flung cities, sometimes from Dallas-Fort Worth or farther,” Levine said. “Often these people had previously failed one or more attempts at the certification exam.”

“They then drove — sometimes four or more hours — to the Houston area, and suddenly they were passing the test with flying colors,” Levin continued.

The five charged are:

  • Vincent Grayson — head boys basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School. Identified by Ogg as “the kingpin and organizer of the scheme”
  • Tywana Mason — a staffer at HTECH. She’s accused of acting as the proctor and allowing an impersonator to take exams in place of teaching candidates
  • Nicholas Newton — Washington High School assistant principal. He is accused of being a test applicant proxy/impersonator
  • LaShonda Roberts — assistant principal at Yates High School. She is accused of acting as a recruiter and referral agent
  • Darian Nikole Wilhite —  accused of acting as a testing proctor

Prosecutors said they were tipped off by a former Houston-area coach who was applying to be a police officer elsewhere in Texas. Investigators interviewed numerous teachers who corroborated the story and reviewed thousand of pages of phone and bank records to build their case.

It’s thought that at least 400 certification tests were taken fraudulently. 

In order to teach in Texas, a person must earn a bachelor’s degree, complete a teacher preparation program, pass teacher certification exams, complete fingerprinting and apply for certification.