Ian Roberts, Des Moines Public Schools Superintendant Arrested By ICE

Ian Roberts, the past Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) in Des Moines, Iowa, was found with a loaded handgun, knife, and a large amount of cash ($3,000) when arrested by ICE. (His work visa expired, and he had a final removal order dated May 22, 2024. Just WILD to me.)

This is a huge problem in and of itself. We see a lot of the aftermath currently of this situation, including but not limited to the hiring practices of the DMPS, the vetting process of DMPS for who’s around our children, the periodic checks of these same people, and some other things.

First, I want to touch on the third party that looked into this person’s background. I don’t think this is a valid thing to “blame” for this. I think the fact that the DMPS (the school board) chose to use this process goes against many safety concerns. When running any organization, when you put something like this in another’s hands, you put the liability and risk in their control. For an organization that is paramount to our children’s success, I see this as a massive failure of the DMPS, not the third party that did the vetting.

What I think we need to do is offer a vetting service through the government that companies, public or private, can utilize to vet any employees they may hire (if they wish, not a requirement) to help prevent this. At this point, we can put the liability on the governments that oversee these programs, as well as those who fake things (like being a doctor, apparently) to get around this.

I’ve heard many times people say they lie on their résumés to get the jobs they want. We need a foolproof way to stop this from happening in any industry, and I think this is a good first step myself. Incremental change is necessary for long-term success, in many cases—this being one. If we have a Department of Education, I think they need to be more involved with who the schools put around our children. The reason for this belief is that the superintendent was found with a loaded firearm, a knife, and $3,000 in cash. All three of those things together, I think, would lead a lot of people to believe there was something else going on behind the scenes with this guy (not accusing him of anything, just forming a personal opinion as I write this).

In the end, I think we need to integrate the government more into the hiring process for PUBLIC schools or get rid of the whole Department of Education and allow private schools to become more prominent—with the caveat that schooling for the children needs to be free (for non-profit schools), which can be covered with grants based upon student enrollment numbers (which would need to be verified). Let the schools make their own decisions instead of being told by the Department of Education. Cutting off the fat of that department and putting liability into privately owned schools would be the best way to go, IMO. Then you wouldn’t necessarily have school superintendents in the first place unless a private non-profit owns multiple schools and they decide to set up their own boards for the needs of the organization to educate our children. There is a different mindset between employees when it comes to government-run and privately run companies, even if non-profits. They take things more seriously than just collecting a government paycheck.

Back to the past superintendent of DMPS, I think it’s ridiculous he was even hired in the first place.

-Scott Petheram

Edited for grammar only by ChatGPT (no formatting or structural changes made).