State education commissioner found termination evidence was riddled with errors
A veteran Houston teacher alleges she was fired for blowing the whistle on testing problems and racial discrimination.
The federal lawsuit, filed September 15, 2026, in the Southern District of Texas, names Houston Independent School District and six officials as defendants. The teacher - an African-American woman with 26 years in Texas public education - taught eighth-grade mathematics and Algebra I at Patrick Henry Middle School.
According to the complaint, things started to unravel in late April 2025. The teacher reported STAAR calculator and testing irregularities to her then-principal, providing photographs to document the issue.
Within weeks, the concerns escalated. On May 20, 2025, the filing states the teacher raised testing and retaliation concerns directly with a North Division chief. A week later, the Houston Education Association sent a formal complaint to HISD leadership on behalf of Patrick Henry staff. That complaint, according to the filing, identified testing irregularities, "discriminatory practices, retaliation, harassment, bullying, and a hostile work environment."
It also flagged what the filing describes as unequal workloads between African-American and non-African-American employees and a racially offensive incident involving "Nigger Bucks." The teacher's SPOT observation scores, the complaint alleges, were intentionally lowered. A colleague later reported hearing an assistant principal say the then-principal "makes her change SPOT scores," according to the filing.
The complaint also describes a pattern involving other African-American staff. A female African-American sixth-grade mathematics teacher who was pregnant at the time was involuntarily reassigned from mathematics to Pre-K at a substantially lower salary at the end of the 2024-2025 school year, the filing states. Her position was filled by a Hispanic male teacher. A male African-American mathematics teacher was reassigned to another campus without a pay reduction, according to the complaint.
By the 2025-2026 school year, a new principal had taken over at Patrick Henry. On July 29, 2025, the teacher received a summative evaluation rated Developing/Progressing II, which she disputed, the complaint states.
On August 27, 2025, she filed a Level 1 grievance challenging the evaluation and what she described as retaliatory evaluation practices. The next day, she filed a special-education complaint with the Texas Education Agency, alleging HISD had failed to timely implement required IEP services and accommodations.
Then the documentation started.
According to the complaint, within days of HISD learning about the TEA complaint, the new principal began collecting documentation on the teacher. Before September 3, 2025, the filing states, the teacher had never received a write-up or been placed on any action plan or growth plan.
On September 3 and 4, 2025, disciplinary memoranda followed, the complaint alleges. Multiple administrators entered the teacher's classroom, including the division chief who had received her May 20 complaints. That official, the filing states, criticized the teacher's instructional approach while students were working on assignments.
On September 3, the teacher filed an OSHA safety complaint concerning what she described as unsafe dismissal-duty conditions and retaliation, according to the filing. The written complaint form is dated September 4, 2025.
A colleague - also an African-American woman - was placed on Home Duty on September 4, the complaint states. The teacher and an assistant principal, both African-American women, were placed on Home Duty the following day. The assistant principal was later terminated, according to the filing.
The Home Duty memorandum directed the teacher to remain at her residence during normal work hours, call by 8:00 a.m. each morning to report in, and stay available to receive assignments by phone within the hour, the complaint states. A later reassignment memorandum, dated October 15, 2025, required her to report in by 8:00 a.m. and report out at 4:00 p.m.
The complaint alleges the official who served as the teacher's Level 1 grievance hearing officer was simultaneously being copied on the adverse documentation generated against her. That official did not issue the grievance decision until September 30, 2025 - after additional adverse documentation, including a memorandum retroactively dated September 5, had been generated, according to the filing.
On October 10, 2025, HISD's superintendent recommended termination of the teacher's Chapter 21 teaching contract. The termination letter alleged failure to implement accommodations, improper administration of a state assessment, refusal to follow assigned dismissal duties, policy violations, and violation of the Educator's Code of Ethics, the complaint states. It contained no allegation of criminal conduct or law-enforcement referral, according to the filing.
The teacher requested an independent hearing. The hearing examiner proceeding ran January 20-21, 2026, and on February 6, 2026, the examiner recommended termination.
On April 23, 2026, HISD's Board of Managers voted 5-0-1, without discussion, to adopt that recommendation and terminate the contract, according to the complaint.
The state education commissioner saw it differently.
The teacher appealed to the Texas Commissioner of Education, who granted the appeal on June 23, 2026. According to the complaint, the Commissioner found that most of the hearing examiner's findings were "erroneous," contained "citations to irrelevant record evidence and misstatements of witness testimony," and made no findings at all on two of the three termination reasons.
The findings were "conclusory, riddled with citation errors and inaccuracies, and insufficient to establish good cause" for termination, according to the filing's account of the Commissioner's findings. The Board's decision, the complaint states the Commissioner found, was "arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful and unsupported by substantial evidence."
The complaint also points to a broader pattern. Another HISD educator filed a separate federal lawsuit making similar claims: that an administrator entered her classroom after protected complaints and that she was subsequently placed on Home Duty and terminated, according to the filing.
TEA had separately investigated the teacher's special-education complaint and substantiated an allegation that HISD failed to timely implement required IEP services, the complaint states.
The teacher also filed TEA educator-misconduct complaints. One named two administrators and alleged state-assessment test-security violations and false or misleading information provided to TEA, according to the filing. A second named the school principal and the grievance hearing officer, alleging "retaliation and failure to intervene" following the teacher's protected complaints.
The career consequences go beyond this job. Under Texas Education Code Chapter 22A, anyone applying for a teaching position must consent to release of employment records and disclose whether they have been terminated. The teacher alleges the termination and what the filing calls "stigmatizing professional allegations" placed in her personnel file impair her ability to find future work in Texas public education.
The complaint brings eleven counts: Title VII race discrimination, sex discrimination, and retaliation against HISD; equal protection claims under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 against the individual defendants; race discrimination and retaliation under Sections 1981 and 1983; First Amendment retaliation; Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process; civil conspiracy; occupational liberty; and a Texas Whistleblower Act claim.
The teacher seeks reinstatement, back pay, restoration of benefits and retirement service credit, compensatory and punitive damages, name-clearing relief, and expungement of adverse records.
The allegations in this complaint have not been tested, and no court has ruled on the merits.
