On Wednesday evening, the Des Moines School Board issued a statement in which Chair Jackie Norris called the board “a victim of deception” by Ian Roberts, who the board hired as superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) in May 2023. It was a noticeable shift in how the board has talked about Roberts since Friday, when he was arrested by ICE agents assisted by the Iowa State Patrol. According to ICE, Roberts is in the country illegally.
“The Des Moines School Board is also a victim of deception by Dr. Roberts, one on a growing list that includes our students and teachers, our parents and community, our elected officials and Iowa’s Board of Educational Examiners, and others,” Norris said in the news release. “We are committed to the community we serve and will find ways to improve our entire process as we move forward.”
Roberts, who is from Guyana, was the first person of color to lead DMPS, the state’s largest school district.
The board’s Wednesday statement came a little less than 24 hours after it voted unanimously to accept Roberts’ resignation as superintendent. Board members had the option of either firing Roberts — the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners revoked his superintendent’s license on Sunday, making him ineligible to be superintendent — or accepting the letter of resignation submitted by his attorney. They decided to do the latter during their special session on Tuesday night.
The one-paragraph letter of resignation said, “Dr. Roberts has authorized me to send this letter announcing his immediate resignation from his position as superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools. Out of concern for his 30,000 students, Dr. Roberts does not want to distract the Board, educators, and staff from focusing on educating DMPS’s students.” It was signed by Alfredo Parrish, the prominent Des Moines attorney whose firm is assisting Roberts.
“For all of us, this is not what we anticipated when we welcomed Dr. Ian Roberts into central Iowa and the Des Moines school district a little more than two years ago,” Norris said, reading from prepared remarks during the special session. “It is a sad and troubling end for an individual who gave many people, especially our students, hope.”
That statement was more typical of the ones the board issued since being informed of Roberts’ Sept. 26 arrest, and subsequent detention in Woodbury County Jail, where he was held on ICE detainer.
As required by law, Roberts submitted a completed I-9, the federal government’s standard employment eligibility verification form. Norris said during the Tuesday meeting that Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen on his I-9, and “provided two forms of ID, a drivers license and a Social Security card,” and that the board had the Dentons Davis Brown law firm review the I-9 and accompanying documents. Norris said Dentons Davis Brown “determined the information was consistent with his claim that he was a U.S. citizen.”
Roberts also claimed he was a U.S. citizen on the license application he submitted to the Board of Educational Examiners, according to the Iowa Department of Education.
During a news conference on Tuesday, attorney Alfredo Parrish asked people to “be patient,” because “this is a very complex case.”
“There are several jurisdictions that are involved, there are several law enforcement entities that are involved,” Parrish said.
ICE arrested Roberts in Des Moines on the morning of Friday, Sept. 26. According to a statement from the Iowa Department of Public Safety (IDPS), Roberts was pulled over in a traffic stop, but drove off after being approached by ICE agents. He subsequently abandoned his vehicle — a DMPS car — before being apprehended.
In its statement, IDPS said at “approximately” 8:45 a.m. on Friday, it “received a mutual aid request to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in locating an individual who fled from a traffic stop initiated by their agents… Iowa State Patrol Troopers and Special Agents responded to the area and assisted in locating the subject, later identified as Ian Roberts.”
ICE reported finding a loaded handgun, a fixed-blade hunting knife and approximately $3,000 in cash in the car Roberts was driving. On Friday night, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) executed a search warrant at Roberts’ home in southeast Des Moines. Neighbors told the Des Moines Register that agents in tactical gear forced their way into Roberts home around 8 p.m. No one appeared to be in the house at the time, according to the neighbors.
“They broke into the door, took some of the stuff from his house,” Suresh Gazmer, who lives next door to Roberts, told the Register. “They were like, banging the doors. And, you know, my daughters were crying. I mean, what’s going on here? It was a scary moment.”
It hasn’t been disclosed what the agents took from Roberts’ house. The Department of Homeland Security, the agency that includes ICE, later issued a statement saying it had contacted ATF because as someone in the country without legal status, it was illegal for Roberts to be in possession of a firearm. (Having a firearm in a DMPS vehicle violates district policy, and would normally result in a person being fired.)
After being informed of Roberts’ arrest on Friday, the school board immediately put him on paid administrative leave. Shortly after 12:30 p.m. on Friday, board Chair Norris issued a statement saying that Associate Superintendent Matt Smith had been appointed interim superintendent, while the board was trying to get information about what was happening with Roberts.
“We have no confirmed information as to why Dr. Roberts is being detained or the next potential steps,” Norris said in the statement.
As DMPS received more information over the following days, it issued updates to its staff and the public. On Monday, the school board changed Roberts status to unpaid administrative leave, because his administrator’s license had been revoked the day before.
“New information and confirmed facts will continue to inform our decisions as we develop a path forward,” Norris said in the news release on Monday addressing the change in status. “Two things can be true at the same time — Dr. Roberts was an effective and well-respected leader and there are serious questions related to his citizenship and ability to legally perform his duties as superintendent.”
According to ICE, in May 2024 an immigration judge issued an order of removal for Roberts, who had entered the country in 1999 in an F-1 student visa to study at St. John’s University, a private school in New York City. The judge’s decision cited an “existing weapons possession charge” from February 2020, according to DHS. No details regarding that charge are currently available.
There was another weapons-related incident in 2021, while Roberts was superintendent of the Millcreek Township School District in western Pennsylvania. Roberts, who has described himself as an avid hunter, was issued a citation and paid a $100 fine for having a loaded hunting rifle in his vehicle.
Roberts disclosed the second incident to DMPS during the hiring process.
“He provided sufficient context and explanation of the situation to move forward in the hiring process,” a news release from the district said. “He has also spoken publicly about this experience.”
Roberts was the unanimous choice of the Des Moines school board when he was hired in 2023. At the time, he was superintendent of the Millcreek Township School District, which is located just outside Erie, Pennsylvania. That district has approximately 6,400 students. DMPS has about 30,000 students.
In the news release announcing his hiring, DMPS described Roberts as the son of immigrants from Guyana, and said he grew up in New York City. “Prior to becoming a special education teacher, principal, district leader, and leadership trainer, Ian was a world class and Olympic Athlete,” DMPS said. He competed in the 8,000 meters in the 2000 Summer Olympics as a member of Guyana’s national team.
According to the May 2023 news release, Roberts was coming to DMPS with experience “leading schools in a number of large and mid-sized cities, including Washington D.C., Baltimore and St. Louis,” having “held the roles of Chief Schools Officer, Superintendent of Secondary Schools, Principal, and Senior Vice President of a charter management organization” before being appointed superintendent in Millcreek in 2020.
Reporting by Iowa and national news organizations since have revealed that parts of Roberts’ accounts of his educational background and professional accomplishments are false, as are parts of the life story he would relate in public settings.
Roberts did pass a background check commissioned by the consulting firm DMPS used in its 2023 search for a new superintendent. He also passed the background checks conducted on behalf of the Board of Educational Examiners, which included an FBI background check. In addition to those checks, Roberts had passed other background checks in other districts over the course of his two-decade-long career in the United States.
During his news conference on Tuesday, Alfredo Parrish confirmed that Roberts is a citizen of Guyana, not the United States, but suggested Roberts may have been under the impression that he was in the country legally.
Roberts had appealed the order of removal, but did not attend the March hearing this year in Texas, where a different immigration judge rejected the appeal. (Roberts and his wife own a home in Denton County, Texas, which may be why the hearing was in that state.) During the news conference, Parrish distributed copies of post-hearing letter from Roberts’ Texas attorney that said, “It has been my pleasure to represent you throughout this process, and I am pleased to report that your case has reached a successful resolution.”
The Texas attorney has declined to comment on Roberts’ case, citing attorney-client privilege.
Parrish could give few definitive answers during the news conference, saying he had not yet had a chance to review all the necessary documents.
“These files are difficult to access,” he said, adding that his firm had only been working on the case since Friday afternoon.
Parrish did say that Roberts’ “spirits are high” and he was grateful for all the support he had received after his arrest. There were public demonstrations of support for Roberts in Des Moines over the weekend, and on Tuesday, more than 100 DMPS students engaged in a walkout to declare their support for him and opposition to ICE.
Parrish said during the Tuesday news conference that he was filing a motion for a stay in Roberts case, in order to have time to petition to have his immigration case reopened.
On Thursday, Woodbury County Sheriff Chad Sheehan said Roberts was no longer being held in his county’s jail.
“As of Thursday October 2, 2025, Ian Roberts is no longer in the custody of the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office jail,” Sheehan said in a Facebook post. “Mr. Roberts was taken into custody by the United States Department of Justice on a Federal warrant for his arrest.”
Parrish confirmed to the Register that Roberts is “in custody but moved.” No further information about the former superintendent’s whereabouts were provided.
