News last week shocked Iowans when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested the superintendent of the state’s largest school district for being in the country illegally.
Not only was this man here without legal permission, but he also had a rap sheet featuring several previous run-ins with the law, including weapons charges. Yet Ian Andre Roberts managed to land a pretty big gig in the education sector; the school board placed him in charge of molding the minds of future generations of American voters.
And if that's not bad enough, when authorities caught Roberts, he carried both a gun and a knife.
From an ICE press release last week:
DES MOINES, Iowa — Today, ICE Des Moines arrested Ian Andre Roberts, a criminal illegal alien from Guyana in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a fixed blade hunting knife. At the time of his arrest, Roberts was working as the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools despite being an illegal alien with a final order of removal and no work authorization.
During a targeted enforcement operation on Sept. 26, 2025, officers approached Roberts in his vehicle after identifying himself, but he sped away. Officers later discovered his vehicle abandoned near a wooded area. State Patrol assisted in locating the subject and he was taken into ICE custody.
Roberts has existing weapon possession charges from February 5, 2020. Roberts entered the United States in 1999 on a student visa and was given a final order of removal by an immigration judge in May of 2024.
How is it possible that not a single person working in the Des Moines school district knew Roberts was in the country illegally? I was under the impression that to work with children in any capacity, you needed to pass a background check. Wouldn't his previous charges have shown up? The weapons charges should have been a red flag.
The Big Talker in Des Moines (WHO/1040) reported:
Des Moines School Board Chair Jackie Norris announced that Associate Superintendent Matt Smith will serve as interim superintendent until further notice. Norris stated that the board is committed to maintaining a safe and outstanding education for all students and will provide updates as more information becomes available.
Shockingly, the answer to the queries made above is an emphatic "no." How scary is that? If you're the parent of a child in public school, the lack of screening for employees placed in high positions should be alarming.
And what's worse is this isn't something only happening in Des Moines. A news site in Erie, Pa., Go Erie, also reported that Roberts ran the Mill Creek School District before the board hired him in Des Moines. He worked in school districts located in St. Louis, Baltimore, D.C., and even the Bronx.
Why is this such a common phenomenon across the country? Shouldn't the safety of children be the number one priority when it comes to public education? Something is fishy about all of this.
I don't think we really needed additional reasons to privatize education, but this certainly provides a big one.
Go Erie says:
Alison Hoeman, founder of the local nonprofit Des Moines Refugees Support, said she was stunned when she heard the news and that her phone “blew up” this morning with texts from friends and volunteers already looking for ways to support Roberts. She has learned from families of Des Moines Public School of students calling their parents, asking, “‘Nothing’s going to happen to Dr. Roberts, right?’”
“You know it’s the Black and Brown kids who are worried," she said. "If it’s Ian Roberts who’s in trouble, what does that mean for them?” What it means is nobody is above the law. A valuable lesson for any child. I would be very interested indeed, in the reasoning and justification for that comment.
This all has the stink of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Are school boards more interested in hitting a quota of DEI hires based on race than they are making sure the individual hired for the job is safe to be around kids? Perhaps it's a matter of funding. Regardless, this is the wrong move. The district’s negligence put children at risk. Someone needs to take responsibility for hiring Roberts and not doing their job to vet him beforehand.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the case is the loaded handgun police found him carrying, along with $3.000 in cash. Roberts carried the weapon illegally without a permit, proving once again that gun control laws are useless since criminals don't buy guns through legal channels. The money seems to have been for help to disappear. As if he knew that, someday, the jig would indeed be up.
So many questions remain about Roberts’ hiring process. The individuals who allowed this man to slip through the cracks — almost certainly on purpose — must face accountability and serve as an example to others.
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