A Guyanese educator who appears to have charmed his way into one of the top academic jobs in Iowa is in the battle of his life to avoid deportation after ICE agents picked him up last Friday for being in the US illegally, and as authorities are now openly questioning his academic credentials.
Until agents rounded him up in the Des Moines district to enforce a “final removal” order, Ian Andre Roberts, 54, had been holding down the $270,000 a year job and salary as the superintendent of the largest school district in Des Moines, supervising 5,000 workers and overseeing the work of 30,000 students.
But his world as the well-loved educator who had also represented Guyana as an 800-meter runner at the Sydney Olympics in Australia in 2000 appears to be crumbling as his attorneys fight deportation and as deep dives into his past reveal questions about his picking up a PHD from Morgan State University in Maryland more than a decade ago.
Initially, the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners had publicly vowed to support the former Guyanese police officer cadet identified by his supervisors for accelerated promotion, but they have since revoked his professional license even as they report that Roberts had cleared all their background checks by contractors and the FBI. The revocation sparked Roberts’ resignation on Tuesday. He noted through his attorneys that he wanted to minimize distractions to the district.
As Guyanese back home monitor his saga, many are calling on authorities to snap him up and award him a top job in education, given his qualifications, if he is, in fact, deported. But also, on Tuesday, the Des Moines Register reported no evidence that Roberts holds a PHD degree. Now they wonder what will happen next as officials probe deeper into his background.
Board Chairperson Jackie Norris said that there is no evidence that Roberts is legally allowed to remain in the US, noting that he cannot therefore be hired to work in the district “in any fashion. It is a sad and troubling end for an individual who gave many people, especially our students, hope,” she said in a statement. “He also can no longer serve as superintendent in Iowa after the state revoked his administrator’s license.”
Alfredo Parish, his lead attorney, said in a statement that the team is still working to unravel his immigration status and to reopen his immigration case.
“To the Des Moines School Board, Dr. Roberts has authorized me to send this letter announcing his immediate resignation as superintendent of Des Moines public schools. Out of concern for his 30,000 students, Dr. Roberts does not want to distract the Board, educators, and staff from focusing on educating DMPS’s students,” his attorney noted.
His older brother Colin, who lives in Barbados, is adamant that “Ian is a citizen and that all will be well. He went to the University of Guyana while he was in Guyana and was a good athlete,” he said in a brief note to this publication.
Retired senior Guyanese police officers, including Winston Felix and Paul Slowe, both remembered him fondly. They agreed that he was an officer of so much promise that he was sent on the national standard military officer’s course, aced it, and returned to the police as a cadet, identified for greater things in the future. But he left in 1999 on a US student’s visa and made the Guyana Olympic team the following year.
“We had sent him on the standard military officer’s course, and after graduation, he returned to the police. He served for a few years and then left. He was not dismissed or dishonorably discharged at all. He just moved on. He was a good, promising, and disciplined man who had worked in several police departments, including immigration,” said Slowe, who admitted to being saddened by news of his troubles with US immigration.
