“Damage Is To Families Of The Children Who Go To Those Schools”: Houston Basketball Coach Is Alleged Kingpin Of Brazen $1.9M Teacher Certification Scheme That Paid Proxies $2500 For 430 Fraudulent Tests

A Texas high school basketball coach has been arrested and charged with masterminding a million-dollar scheme to facilitate fraudulent teaching certificates. Vincent Grayson, a winning coach who led Houston Booker T. Washington’s boys basketball squad to its first UIL state championship appearance in 2023, was identified as the leader of a criminal enterprise that corralled more than $1,090,000 since May 2020, according to Harris County felony chief prosecutor Mike Levine. Who Were The Five Houston Educators Charged In $1M Teaching Certification Racket? Grayson was one of five people charged in connection with a teacher-certification cheating ring that led to illegally certified teachers working in Texas schools, District Attorney Kim Ogg said. Also charged in the scheme were Washington assistant principals Nicholas Newton, 35, and Darian Nikole Wilhite, 22, a proctor, Tywana Gilford Mason, 51, the former director/VA certifying official at the Houston Training and Education Center; and LaShonda Roberts, 39, an assistant principal at Yates High School in Houston ISD.& According to Harris County court records, Grayson was arrested and taken into custody Monday afternoon with a bond of $500,000. Grayson, 57, was also the school’s athletics director, so his rising career is in shambles after this discovery.  During a...