A Texas high school basketball coach has been arrested and charged in a million-dollar scheme to facilitate fraudulent teaching certificates.
Vincent Grayson, who led Houston Booker T. Washington‘s boys basketball team to its first UIL state championship appearance in 2023, was identified as the leader in a scheme that brought in more than $1,090,000 since May 2020, according to Harris County felony chief prosecutor Mike Levine.
Grayson was arrested Monday morning and booked into jail Monday afternoon with a $500,000 bond attached to his release, according to Harris County court records,
The arrest marks a stark fall from grace for a coach who led a Houston high school basketball team to historic heights in recent years. Grayson, 57, was also the school’s athletic director.
During a press conference on Monday, Levine said the total amount earned was probably higher than $1.09 million, the total amount traced through payments on Zelle and CashApp.
Also charged in the scheme were Tywana Gilford Mason, 51, the former director/VA certifying official at the Houston Training and Education Center; Washington assistant principals Nicholas Newton, 35, and Darian Nikole Wilhite, 22, a proctor; and LaShonda Roberts, 39, an assistant principal at Yates High School in Houston ISD.
According to Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, applicants would pay $2,500 for a proxy to take the test for them. They would arrive at the testing site, sign in and leave. A hired proxy, Newton, would step in and actually take the test.
The testing proctors, Gifford Mason and later Wilhite, were paid to look the other way and facilitate the cheating, according to Ogg.
The scheme fell apart when Newton was caught taking a test at a testing facility.
“In fact, when he was caught red-handed in February of 2024 he was logged into one test,” Levine said. “He said to investigators, ‘Well look at the screen behind you,’ and he was logged in as a different person taking another test on another terminal that same day.”
TACTIX was used as a testing site after the Houston Training and Education Center closed in mid-2023.
According to Levine, Grayson would pay Gifford Mason 20% of the money he received, and she took in more than $125,000 — paid through 350 digital transactions.
Newton was paid more than $188,000, according to Levine, from May 2020 to February 2024 and took more than 430 fraudulent tests, authorities estimate.
He said Wilhite was paid $250 in cash each time she let the alleged deception take place.
According to Levine, Gifford Mason had been prosecuted for bribery in Harris County 20 years ago in an unrelated case.
Roberts was alleged to have recruited 90 teachers into the scheme and sent $267,000 to Grayson.
“To me, the damage is not just to the education system, which is under great duress right now, but it’s actually to the families of the children who go to those schools, who trust the government to educate their kids and keep them safe for eight hours a day,” Ogg said.
Levine thanked two employees with the Texas Attorney General’s Office for help, his investigators and the Texas Education Agency for reaching out to the attorney general office.
Alexandra Elizondo, the chief of public affairs and communication for Houston ISD, said in a separate press conference Monday that all three district employees were fired immediately.
Houston ISD wasn’t aware of the conduct or the investigation until shortly before arrests were made, according to Elizondo, and there’s a lot the district still doesn’t know.
She confirmed Houston ISD police worked with local enforcement for the arrests, though she said the school’s police officers did not make the arrests on Monday.
Elizondo said any teacher hired by Houston ISD would face termination if they were part of the scheme.
“The conduct in question is completely unacceptable and completely against every one of each values what we believe about teacher certification, and it is unacceptable at that,” Elizondo said.
Grayson had been working at Booker T. Washington High School since 2003.
He led a successful program during his tenure, guiding the Eagles to 20 or more wins in the past three years. They went 27-5 last year, 29-8 during the state title run and 29-5 in 2021-22.
Last year, the Eagles made a strong playoff run that fell short of the final four in San Antonio, reaching the regional final where they lost to Silsbee for the second time in three seasons.
In the summer of 2023, Grayson was one of the speakers at the Texas High School Coaches Association in Houston. That same year, he was the ARS H-Town High School Sports 2022-23 Coach of the Year, a program hosted by Todd Freed and seen on CW39 in Houston.
Texas Rep. Jarvis Johnson was the primary sponsor of a bill passed in May 2023 recognizing Washington’s historic 2023 season.
That same year, the City of Houston honored the Booker T. Washington team at a city council meeting.
By Monday night, Grayson’s teacher page for Booker T. Washington had been scrubbed and the school will find a new basketball coach a week after UIL allowed the start of practice for the upcoming season.
Teams could scrimmage on Saturday and the season could start on Nov. 8. Booker T. Washington’s first game is Nov. 11 against Houston Furr.
— Cody Thorn | @sblivetx
