Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

The lesson of the hot stove emerged again last week.

That is the lesson toddlers learn early and smart ones retain for a lifetime. Touch something hot and you know not to touch it again.

Educator Ian Roberts delivered a new rendition of the lesson over the past fortnight. Time will tell whether government officials take to heart the learning moment offered by the Roberts train wreck.

You may recall how Des Moines Public Schools officials effusively welcomed Roberts to Des Moines in the summer of 2023. He quickly impressed state officials, parents and their kids, and his bosses, with his charisma, enthusiasm, a can-do message and foot races with kids.

Hubbell Elementary fifth-grader Amayah Vilmael edges out Superintendent Ian Roberts in a 100-meter dash in May 2024

Roberts also knew how to write a convincing resume, with references to impressive awards and honors, and a Ph.D. dissertation titled “Teachers and School Leaders’ Perspectives on the Efficacy of Culturally Responsive Inclusion and Self-Contained Settings.”

What the public did not know at the time—and what the school board should have learned had it done its homework—has grabbed the nation’s attention: Roberts lacked authorization to work in the United States.

Accompanying him to Des Moines were enough half-truths and outright lies to make Pinocchio take notice. So many that the executive recruitment and screening company that vouched for him now stands embarrassed by facts learned since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents jailed him on September 26 after pursuing him in his school vehicle and then on foot.

The former superintendent now awaits prosecution on firearms charges and possible deportation to Guyana, where he was born and grew up. There is little chance he will be able to pack his flashy track shoes or his collection of guns before he goes.

Meantime, Des Moines school board members will not see calls for accountability and change disappear. They have yet to acknowledge they should have recognized the red flags about his past before hiring him two years ago. They have tried to shift blame to Roberts and the contractor hired to recruit and investigate the backgrounds of candidates for the superintendent’s job. But the school board alone acted in May to extend his contract and increase his salary.

So, continuing demands for accountability may provide a hot-stove education for the seven current members of the school board, four of whom served when Roberts was hired. At a minimum, the chaos Roberts and the search firm and the board brought to Iowa’s largest school district teaches four valuable lessons:

LESSON 1: TRUST BUT E-VERIFY

Iowa’s public-school districts and other state and local government employers, as a matter of policy, should use the federal government’s E-Verify+ system to confirm the employment eligibility under federal immigration laws.

E-Verify+ is not problem-free, but its use might help avoid a mess like that revealed after Roberts tried to out-run law officers last month.

When the Iowa legislature convenes in January, lawmakers should consider requiring government employers to use E-Verify+. (Editor’s note from Laura Belin: On October 8, Governor Kim Reynolds signed Executive Order 15 “requiring all state government departments to verify employment eligibility prior to hiring state employees, and to verify immigration status or U.S. citizenship before granting state-issued occupational and professional licenses.”)

LESSON 2: LIARS SELDOM STOP AT ONE FALSEHOOD

The school board knew before it hired Roberts that despite the claim on his resume, he did not receive a Ph.D. from Morgan State University in Maryland. True, he later “amended” his resume to show, instead, his claimed doctorate came from Trident University International, a for-profit online school.

This after-the-fact rationalization of an “error” should have tipped Des Moines school officials that all with Roberts was not as he tried to portray. In the days after his arrest, journalists also confirmed he had never received some awards and honors listed on his resume.

If journalists can substantiate these lies with a few Google searches and phone calls, surely a professional search firm like JG Consulting could have learned about these misstatements, too—especially considering how Des Moines paid the company $35,000 for short-term work supposedly enabled by its special expertise.

But rather than relying solely on outsiders to find any lies or factual errors, the school board should remember, once someone smoothly tells you a falsehood, be on the lookout for more lies that may follow. If people are willing to lie when details can be easily verified, what won’t they lie about?

LESSON 3: THE PUBLIC CAN SAVE YOU

Iowa’s sunshine laws do not require governments to disclose the names of finalists for key jobs like university president, school superintendent, city manager, or police chief. But nothing in the law prohibits a government body from telling applicants and the public that it will release the names and resumes of a short list of candidates before final interviews and a hiring decision.

Des Moines made such a list public when the school board hired Roberts’  predecessor, Thomas Ahart. But when hiring Roberts, the board kept the finalists’ names secret and did not identify Roberts until he was hired.

Nothing guarantees that releasing those names before the board picked Roberts would have ferreted out the phony resume claims. But it is a certainty that when names remain secret, the public cannot reveal facts about a candidate for an important job.

LESSON 4: CHECK IT OUT

John Bremner, a legendary professor at the University of Kansas, reminded generations of journalism students, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out”—meaning journalists need to verify everything.

In the context of hiring, if a search company tells you something, check it out. If a candidate tells you something, check it out. If an anonymous tipster passes along a rumor, check it out.

Most of all, when it comes to entrusting the education and nurturing of children to a person, check the applicant out no matter how trustworthy, respectable or likeable the person seems.

You can learn these lessons by touching a hot stove that Ian Roberts just ignited, or simply by watching others scorch their fingers.

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Top image: Dr. Ian Roberts reads If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to preschool students at Greenwood Elementary in Des Moines in January 2024. Photo courtesy of the Des Moines Public Schools Flickr account.