The school district superintendent arrested by ICE this week lied about attending MIT and was the subject of two sex discrimination lawsuits, The Post has learned.
Snappy-dresser Ian Andre Roberts, 51, was fired by Des Moines Public Schools after it emerged he was working illegally and had been avoiding a deportation order.
Roberts spent over twenty years bouncing around the nation’s education system, holding top posts from coast-to-coast, but also proved controversial.
“He ruined our district for three years,” a former colleague in the state told The Post. “He was very smooth, affable, but the overarching feeling you got from him was smoke and mirrors, mystique.”
He is also rumored to have been caught having sex with a female coworker on school property at his previous role as a superintendent in rural Pennsylvania, a post he held from 2020 to 2023.
Former colleagues claimed to The Post Roberts was a sketchy figure and pathological liar. They said they felt he was hired because of his Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bona fides — and claimed once on the job he did little work.
“He was a player. He liked the women,” a source who knew Roberts, who asked not to be named, told The Post.
Another source expressed concern to the school board in Pennsylvania Roberts might not be a legal resident based on casual comments he had made — but their concern was ignored, they said.
Reports indicate Roberts has not been legally allowed to work in the US since at least 2020, when his employment authorization expired.
Originally from Guyana, Roberts had been ordered to be deported during the Biden administration. He was arrested by ICE on Sept. 26 after attempting to flee officers and was found hiding in brush. The school-owned vehicle he was driving contained a fixed-blade hunting knife, a loaded Glock 19 firearm, and $3,000 in cash.
Since then it has emerged he has faked many of his credentials.
According to the Des Moines School District website, the slick supervisor earned an MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. However, a spokesperson for the elite school told The Post they have no record of it.
He also claimed to have attended Harvard and Georgetown. Those schools did not respond to requests for verification from The Post.
For years, Roberts also falsely claimed he had a doctorate degree from Baltimore’s Morgan State University. A school official told the Des Moines Register he did not obtain a degree from that school, either.
Roberts was superintendent of Millcreek Township schools near Erie, Penn., for three years.
During that time the school district was inundated by lawsuits — and forced to pay out over $400,000 in sex discrimination settlements — claiming Roberts promoted less qualified women over more deserving men.
Town gossip claimed Roberts ran out of Millcreek after he was caught having sex with a female coworker on school property — although this could not be verified by The Post.
“There were rumors flying around about his, let’s say, extracurricular activities,” a former colleague in that district said.
A lawyer for Roberts did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
At the time of Roberts’ abrupt resignation, however, Millcreek schools was also in the process of negotiating a $250,000 a settlement with former HR chief Melody Ellington. She was threatening to sue the district for “constructive discharge” following her own resignation in 2022 after only one year on the job.
“Constructive discharge,” according to the Labor Dept., applies to situations when a resignation is involuntary due to a hostile or intolerable work environment.
Other than Ellington, Roberts is the only school district official identified by name in the settlement, according to the Erie Times-News.
One source told The Post that Ellington was Roberts’ girlfriend, but this could not be confirmed. Ellington, moved out of state after her resignation, and did not return calls for comment.
According to Ellington’s LinkedIn profile, she worked at St. Louis public schools as Director of Budget from 2015-2020, the same time Roberts was superintendent of St. Louis public schools.
A former colleague told The Post that Roberts “brought Ellington with him” to Millcreek when he accepted the job.
Former colleagues and Millcreek community members said some members of the school board were very “attracted to” notions of DEI and equity, which drew them toward Roberts as a candidate despite his “glaring red flags.”
Among those red flags, a 2020 firearms violation, which is at the root of him now being detained for removal.
Once he started the job, coworkers, parents, and members of the community noticed something was off.
“It seemed like he was more about the persona of being the superintendent and not necessarily fulfilling all the responsibilities to the district and parents and students,” a former colleague, who didn’t want to be named, told The Post.
“But those in the community who were pleased with his hire, from a DEI perspective, were reluctant to address it, or didn’t see it.”
Others noticed Roberts seemed more preoccupied with running a side-hustle, giving speeches about racial equity and tending to various BLM-themed projects, than doing the work of a school superintendent.
Former colleagues also said he was a pathological deceiver, telling lies about ordinary, conversational things that weren’t consistent from person to person — such as how many children he had.
Even still, while Roberts publicly claims to have a wife, his former co-worker told The Post they had never met or seen her and wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t exist. Another person who knew Roberts said Roberts didn’t hide the fact he was actively on the wife-hunt for immigration reasons.
In his role at Des Moines schools, the largest district in the state, Roberts raked in a fat $287,000 annual base salary. He officially resigned on Wednesday, while detained.
The district insists it didn’t break any laws and received all the appropriate paperwork to verify his employment eligibility.
Millcreek hired him following a vetting and search process by Minneapolis-based recruitment firm Ray and Associates, a representative for Millcreek told The Post. The recruitment company did not respond to a request for comment.
“The School District received all required clearances, including an FBI background check, prior to Roberts serving as Superintendent. No disqualifying events were identified,” the school district said in a statement.
More shocking, it was revealed this week Roberts has an active Democrat voter registration in Maryland, prompting congressional Republicans to demand answers from the Maryland State Board of Elections about “gaping holes” in the state’s election integrity systems, according to Fox News.
Before moving to small town Pennsylvania, Roberts held a high-power, cushy job as Chief Schools Officer for Aspire Public Schools in Oakland, Calif. and was a superintendent for public schools in St. Louis, Mo., and was a principal at high schools in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
The Post has also learned Roberts worked as a full-time substitute teacher in the New York City public school system from October 2000 to September 2001.
Records indicate he came to the US from his native Guyana to study at Baltimore’s Coppin State University, where he graduated in 1998. He then earned a master’s degree from St. John’s University in Queens.
Roberts is also an Olympian, having competed for Guyana in the 2000 Sydney Games in the men’s 800m.
In 2022 he told his alma mater, Coppin State University: “One day I hope to return to my birthplace of Guyana, South America as a public servant.”
That dream will likely be happening sooner than he planned.
