UPDATE April 5th, 2021: A major victory has occurred in the fight to hold public school K-12 administrators accountable for passing the trash on unethical educators! A new house bill has passed in Austin that will apply the Texas Penal Code to administrators who engage in these unethical actions. Administrators will NOW face criminal charges for doing so.
Educators, journalists (including ourselves), attorneys and educator professional associations have been working hard to get this new HB passed in Austin this 2021 legislative session. We are proud of the many visits, conversations and awareness efforts we have put in with 4 different legislators in Austin throughout 2020 to get this bill passed!
It is now a State Jail Felony when administrators unethically “pass the trash” on unethical educators and cover up their misconduct and fail to report to Texas Education Agency and State Board of Educator Certification.
Here are the 3 major components of this bill as it applies to our TEA investigation story:
- State Jail Felonies carry 6 months to 2 years of incarceration time and up to a $10,000 fine. If an administrator is convicted of this offense, they will have a felony on their criminal record.
- Additionally, civil fines will be incurred by these administrators ranging from $500 to $10,000 PER DAY for each day they do not report unethical educators to SBEC.
- There is now a 7 day limit on how long campus administrators have to report unethical misconduct by educators to to the Superintendent and a 7 day limit on how long Superintendents have to report educator misconduct to TEA and SBEC.
See notes below for the items that John Tinker and Gilbert Fuentez should have been reported to SBEC for their misconduct by Dr Curtis Amos, and for which all of those items could have landed Dr Curtis Amos in jail and heavily fined if this HB had been passed by September 2019 when this TEA complaint was filed.
While this is victory delayed, administrators like Dr Curtis Amos and educators like John Tinker WILL BE held accountable into the future if or when they engage in these types of conduct again.
Here is a summary of the language of this HB:
REQUIREMENT TO REPORT EDUCATOR MISCONDUCT
Certified Employees
The resignation or termination of a certified employee must be reported to the State Board of
Educator Certification (SBEC) if there is evidence that the employee was involved in any of the
following:
• Any form of sexual or physical abuse of a minor, or any other unlawful conduct with a
student or a minor (Tinker)
• Soliciting or engaging in sexual contact or a romantic relationship with a student or minor (Tinker)
• The possession, transfer, sale, or distribution of a controlled substance (Fuentez–“possession” also covers “under the influence” or “within an employee’s person”)
• The illegal transfer, appropriation, or expenditure of district or school property or funds
• An attempt by fraudulent or unauthorized means to obtain or alter any certificate or permit
for the purpose of promotion or additional compensation
• Committing a criminal offense or any part of a criminal offense on district property or at a
school-sponsored event. (Fuentez–evidence indicated he was likely transporting students while “under the influence”)
The Texas Education Code also requires that principals report certain misconduct by certificate
holders, including the examples discussed above, to the Superintendent no later than the seventh
business day after the date that an employee resigns or is terminated following an alleged incident
of misconduct or the principal knew about an employee’s reported criminal history.
The superintendent is required to complete an investigation that involves evidence that the
educator may have abused a student or minor, or that the educator may have been involved in a
romantic relationship or solicited or engaged in sexual contact with a student or minor, despite the
educator’s resignation from employment before completion of the investigation.
The superintendent must notify the State Board for Educator Certification by filing a report in
writing on a form prescribed by SBEC not later than the seventh business day after the date the
superintendent receives a report from a principal or knew about an alleged incident of misconduct or a termination of employment or resignation following an alleged incident of misconduct described by Education Code 21.006 (b)(2).
The superintendent shall also notify the Board of Trustees of the school district and the educator
of the filing of the report.
If the principal or superintendent fails to make required reports by the date required, monetary
administrative penalties of not less than $500 and not more than $10,000 may be imposed. The
State Board for Educator Certification may not renew the certification of the person against whom
the administrative penalty has been imposed until the penalty is paid.
Failure of a principal or superintendent to make required reports with an intent to conceal an educator’s criminal record or alleged incident of misconduct commits a state jail felony offense.
Thank you, TEA, Austin legislators and educator professional associations for pushing this through!
UPDATE: As of January 2021, Texas Education Agency has concluded their investigation by 1) reinstating the teaching certificate of admitted child sexual predator and sexual harasser John Tinker, 2) refused to investigate the unethical actions of Everman ISD Superintendent Curtis Amos for actively covering up the illegal actions of both educators, failure to report to TEA and passing the “trash” on both these educators and 3) have only managed to remove admitted drug addict coach Gilbert Fuentez from education completely.
TEA has proven they do not care about schoolchildren in Texas. Allowing an admitted sexual predator to remain in the classroom and a superintendent to keep his position over a school district who hid this admitted sexual predator coach is unacceptable.
However, there is hope. There is movement in other directions to effect proper outcomes that TEA was too incompetent and corrupt to effect. A complaint has been filed with the Texas Judicial Branch over improper conduct by TEA investigators who mishandled the portion of this complaint for Dr Curtis Amos and for those investigators who mishandled the portion for John Tinker.
Sanctions by the Texas Judicial Branch are binding under law. The goal is to permanently separate those investigators from TEA so that they can no longer hide for and assist admitted sexual predator educators to remain in the classroom with access to children.
However, this has not come without a monumental fight.
TEA investigators are embroiled in a battle for open records requests that have been filed to assist with the Texas Judicial Branch complaint.
The Office of the Attorney General ruled in May 2020 that TEA must turn over certain documents related to Amos and Tinker. As of January 2021, TEA investigators have refused to do so.
This refusal to comply with a legal order from the OAG regarding state law is a massive red flag that TEA is trying to hide something.
A court order is being sought from the Texas Judicial Branch for TEA to comply with this legal decision from the OAG.
Additionally, petitions from parents in Everman ISD have been circulating to protest Dr Curtis Amos and to remove him from Everman ISD completely.
Additionally, the co-worker informed us that she has earned a slot to present to (for now) an unnamed Texas Senator in Austin for the current 2021 session. Presentation of this case, findings, law and outcomes to this Texas Senator will provide a voice on the Congressional floor in Austin to call out TEA publicly and officially on record, allowing legislators in Austin to investigate TEA’s corruption and incompetence.
Statewide reform for TEA’s own criminal complicity and outright violations of the law are the goals of the co-worker in trying to affect change within the system state-wide.
Thank you readers for your loyalty and the many many people who have reached out to us to support, share, comment or even criticize our mission. We intend to move forward reporting on this TEA investigation and complaint, with new directions and agencies getting involved, in the hopes that the larger systemic issues that allowed these coaches and superintendent to exist in the first place, and suffer no real consequences when they were reported to the state with proof included, simply because TEA investigators are as incompetent or as a corrupt as the educators themselves.
We will update this story as new events unfold.
UPDATE October 22nd, 2020: We were contacted by a former co-worker of Mr. Fuentez who shared with us information about his fast food job and about his sexual advances towards another female co-worker. Please read “The Newest Co-worker” for more information.
UPDATE August 15th, 2020: We have posted a new page for yet another ex-girlfriend of Gilbert Fuentez who had quite the story to tell about his recent visit to Waco on July 29th, 2020 and their past relationship and ongoing communication between each other: “Another Waco Woman“.
UPDATE August 5th, 2020: We have posted a lengthy update on the outcome of the TEA investigation on the “Who is John Tinker?” page.
UPDATE July 21st, 2020: We have updated the page for “L.R.”. Due to a motion filed by an attorney, we are waiting to hear back on a judge’s decision in the latest development surrounding John Tinker. We will update this page as soon as we have information.
UPDATE July 15th, 2020: We have several updates coming to this site that we are excited about! 1) We have been inundated with emails regarding the citizen petition demanding an immediate resignation from Dr Curtis Amos from Everman ISD. We have referred the organizers of the campaign to a major news outlet in DFW and they are working together to break the story. 2) We have several new pieces of information regarding Mr. Tinker, but are unable to share those at this time due to pending investigations. 3) We have several new updates we have posted and are coming for Mr Fuentez which include new confirmed women he has become romantically involved with, updates on the case with his daughter, his arrest for Reckless Driving while allegedly under the influence of cocaine on Mother’s Day in Odessa and new false allegations that Mr. Fuentez has made against The Co-worker to police in June 2020.
To learn more about Mr. Fuentez’ arrest, visit our newest page “Reckless Driving Arrest“.
To learn more about Mr. Fuentez’ child support case with his daughter, visit our “S.N. and A.N.” page.
To learn more about one of the new women of Gilbert Fuentez, visit our “Meet the Many Women of Gilbert Fuentez” page.
UPDATE June 23rd, 2020: We have posted new updates to “Who is John Tinker?” and “Who is Dr Curtis Amos?“.
UPDATE Father’s Day 2020: We have posted new updates to our page about the court case fight over Gilbert Fuentez attempting to relinquish his parental rights for A.N. to avoid paying around $84,000 in back child support: His Marriage and Infidelity
UPDATE June 14th: We have consulted several times with our staff attorney about publishing the audio recordings that the co-worker has given us. Our attorney has extensively researched the relevant, applicable state and federal laws that pertain to each type of audio recording, especially when recordings have been submitted as evidence in a complaint to a state regulatory agency, and thus has become a matter of public record by their submission into the complaint, and our attorney has also thoroughly examined those laws that protect the co-worker’s right to free speech and press. We have received 4 pages of legal guidance on publishing these recordings, to some extent, for each type of audio recording, for each type of complaint, and can only publish in conjunction with the co-worker’s permission to publish any audio recordings she submitted with those complaints. We will work on producing those and release those out to our readers when our development team has them ready.
UPDATE June 2nd, 2020:
We have posted some updates to some of our pages after verifying some information from readers who have contacted us.
- We have been contacted 3 times by a former, mutual friend of R.R.’s and her ex-boyfriend, that occurred before Gilbert Fuentez, since mid-April after they read our story on Twitter. They shared with us some information and screenshots to verify the information being shared with us. We initially did not publish this reader’s information to our site, but after communicating with them more extensively, we are keeping with our mission to provide a holistic and accurate story about anything we report on.
- Also, we had a family member of R.R.’s who reached out to us before reach out to us again and asked us to publish some sort of proof of documents that involves the co-worker, since an allegation has been made to this family member that the co-worker was lying.
- Also, we were contacted by and have been communicating with one of the other women mentioned on our site, but we will not post updates to their page so as to protect their identity. We have learned some important things that our investigative reporter is working diligently on to verify so that we can publish. One thing that she shared with us is that Gilbert Fuentez may now be now using a 2nd phone line to communicate but is it unclear whether R.R. is aware of this or not. (Updated June 3rd, 2020: We have agreed not to publish this information directly from this source. Instead, we will be handing the information over to private investigators to research and verify. We will publish from private investigators’ findings so as to maintain confidentiality of our sources)
- We are now at more than 191,000 readers and growing! Our site has been read more than 2.76 million times and we have readers reaching out to us daily!
- If you would like to share any information with us, we urge you to send us a confidential email. Rest assured, the privacy of our readers and confidentiality of our sources is paramount to us. We can’t do this without you! THANK YOU!!!
FIRST RELEASE:
Welcome to our newest page! We decided to share with our readers some of the events that have occurred behind the scenes since we first published our news site in March 2020.
1) We have updated many pages to our news story, as of May 18th, 2020 with information from private investigators and from readers who have reached out to us. Please check those pages for updates, retractions and edits.
2) Additionally, we have had an overwhelming response to our news story and many people contacted us with information to share. We have had more than 184,000 visitors and more than 2.7 million page views to our site, and counting.
3) We have received numerous tips. We are aware of rumors being spread by some of the educators in this story that this investigation is fake or that our news coverage is fabricated. We courage anyone with doubts as to the authenticity of this story to look up any Educator’s Certification you wish by clicking on the clicking on this link to the State Board of Educator Certification.
4) We have had alleged victims come forward with stories of their experiences with Mr Tinker and those alleged victims have been referred to investigators to share their statements.
5) We have had responses from readers across the entire country and large media outlets reach out to us. We are working with another investigative reporter from a major news media outlet to develop a deeper, more comprehensive investigation and news story to cover the broader issues with Everman ISD and we are excited for this opportunity.
6) A reader to our site, who has communicated with both Mr Fuentez and Mr Tinker after reading our story, reached out to us and shared screenshots of text messages of their communications with both educators. It is telling that both Mr Fuentez and Mr Tinker engage in slander against the co-worker. In these screenshots with Mr Tinker, he lies and denies the allegations in the Title IX/VII sexual harassment complaint filed with Everman ISD in March 2019, as well as the allegations found in the TEA complaint from September 2019. He feels that this investigation and this news story is all made-up, says some very bitter things about the co-worker and confidently states his opinion that the investigation will be concluded in his favor. In these screenshots with Mr Fuentez, he will not confirm that any facts of the TEA investigation are true, refuses to explain any of his side of the story about this investigation and news story and slanders the co-worker as well. We appreciate this inside look into how both of these educators are handling this scandal and how they are responding to questions from the general public.
THANK YOU to our readers and contributors! We continue to develop this news site with contributions from readers like you.
#texas #education #agency #investigation #john #tinker #gilbert #fuentez #curtis #amos #everman