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File this one under, no wonder parents are more and more afraid to send their kids to public schools. A 25-year-old man posed as a teenager and enrolled in Hillcrest High School in Dallas and played on the basketball team this school year. Seriously.
“Unfortunately this was a perfect storm,” Dr. Michael Hinojosa, DISD superintendent told Fox 4. “When we had the issue of the Hurricane Harvey in the Houston-area, he took advantage of that and portrayed himself as a victim of that event and enrolled himself in one of our schools.”
Is “perfect storm” code for “we have no idea how he got away with this”?
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That’s right, number 14 in your programs, but number one in your hearts this past basketball season for Hillcrest was not 17-year-old Rashaun Sidney Robinson, but was in fact 25-year-old Sidney Bouvier Gilstrap-Portley.
But… how?
He first enrolled at Skyline, then transferred to Hillcrest High School. That time, he said he wasn’t a victim of the hurricane and instead told campus administrators he was homeless.
“We have some liberal policies for homeless students, but he knew that,” Hinojosa said. “And he took advantage of this opportunity to enroll in Hillcrest.”
Gilstrap-Portley, who had actually already graduated from North Mesquite High School in 2011, was charged with tampering with government documents for filing false enrollment records.
Needless to say, this news was met with a bit of shock by Hillcrest parents, while students said Gilstrap-Portley’s basketball skills made him popular.
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The school district has since announced that it is reviewing its homeless student policies. Good idea.