Lancaster ISD Supt Larry Lewis – officially demoted by TEA or still hanging on? (Updated for DeSoto)

I guess the Texas Education Agency audit didn’t quite “vindicate” the school district or the superintendent after all, if TEA is in fact naming a conservator to oversee the “troubled” district. Yep, just like Wilmer-Hutchins before its ultimate demise, the Snooze will have their Microsoft Word programs with a text macro to automatically insert the word “troubled” in front of “Lancaster ISD” for the foreseeable future. TEA told Lancaster School Board President Carolyn Morris that the yet-unnamed conservator will be on campus three days a week. 

Update, Dec. 20, 2021. I see Lewis has been named interim superintendent at DeSoto ISD and this piece is trending. For a more complete list of other reasons not to make this permanent, click here .

Lewis said the TEA had not contacted him about the decision on a conservator. He was surprised to learn that Morris had been told first. “That’s not the Texas Education Agency I know,” Dr. Lewis said. “Generally, they talk to the superintendent and the superintendent then inform the board.”

Well, maybe something got leaked that TEA didn't want to go public yet. Or maybe (see below) Carolyn Morris got something wrong. Or maybe this isn't Shirley Neely's TEA any more.

Morris said she was told by TEA that the cost of the conservator is $60 an hour. According to the agency’s Web site, that is paid by the school district.

That’s $480 a day on a straight eight-hour day, or about $1,400 a week at three days a week. That said, per a second story, the TEA claims Morris misunderstood them and that Commissioner Scott still hasn’t pulled the trigger on anything. That said, Lewis said he talked with TEA officials, but isn’t commenting. Silence gives assent? To the original story, in this case? Details of what got LISD in trouble are in the 291-page PDF of the TEA audit findings. (The portions after page 64 are basically skippable.) 

• Not in compliance with IRS travel reimbursement regs, page 8; 
• Unallowable travel per diem when paid from a state or federal grant, page 9; 
• Per diem/credit card “double dipping,” page 9; 
• MLK dinner at Pappadeaux, page 11 (anytime you spend nearly $600 at Pappadeaux for a Martin Luther King Jr. dinner for less than 30 people - $55 a pop, roughly- , you’re inviting trouble from your own taxpayers - the heck with TEA; 
• Other credit card dining, with unnamed city of Lancaster staff as well, page 11ff; 
• Counting graduated seniors as attending school after the date of graduation, page 13.

 

Update, Dec. 20, 2021: I see we've got new visitors here, presumably attracted by Larry Lewis being named interim superintendent in DeSoto. 

Doorknob help us if this indicates he could be the permanent deal. Click the Larry Lewis tag below or else right here for all the "fun" about him.

Besides the above, you'll find this about his time at Lancaster ISD:

• A payday advance loan system, among other financial irregularities. 
• His general selling ice to Eskimos/coals to Newcastle bullshitting.
• His religious authoritarian appropriation that God talks to him and people opposing his bond proposals after he screwed the pooch on his first one are minions of Satan or close to it.
• Trying to funnel business from school district employees to a school board member.
• Someone willing to personally smear people without grounds.

And, pre-Lancaster, don't forget his performance at Austin Reagan.

Note also: I tweeted most this info to Talia Richman at the Snooze, the author of the linked piece. We'll see what, if any, folo she does.