Lynn Walsh

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Houston ISD school administrator named in Key misspending report says she did nothing wrong; view response/retirement letter here
Wed Mar 31 20:41:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

A school administrator named in an investigation report into misspending at Key Middle School said in a letter she is retiring from HISD, effective March 31.

Dolores Westmoreland, who is listed in an HISD employee database as an assistant principal at Kashmere High School, submitted her notice within a response letter dated March 22 to the Houston Independent School District. At a meeting with news reporters Tuesday morning Superintendent Terry Grier said Westmoreland was resigning.

In the response letter Westmoreland said she did not violate any laws: “I violated no law of the State of Texas or any policy or procedures of the Houston Independent School District.”

An internal investigation done by a private firm for the school district found that Westmoreland failed to make sure testing guidelines were followed during administration of the TAKS standardized test, and misused an HISD-issued credit card known as a procard. The investigation report said Westmoreland used another employee’s procard at Wal-Mart between December 2007 and January 2008, signing her own name on the receipts.

“I did sign my name on the charge slip, because I was told this was the protocol at Key,” Westmoreland said in her response letter.

She also said she never made several of the purchases referenced in the investigation report:

When I had a card issued in my name in 2008-2009, it was kept in [administrator Peggy Collins'] office. I noticed that there are charges on there for food and other things in the documents. I did not make those purchases myself. The two main vendors that I used for the Procard were Office Depot and Wal-Mart.

The investigation report names Collins as one of three people involved in the “gross mismanagement and abuse of authority by Key administration.” Peggy L. Collins is listed as a school business manager at Key in a database of HISD worker salaries Texas Watchdog acquired from the school district earlier this year.

Westmoreland also said no testing procedures were breached.

Another employee named in the investigation, former Key Principal Mable Caleb, had submitted a March 22 letter of retirement, to begin Aug. 31.

The investigation at Key Middle School began after HISD received an anonymous tip suggesting officials look at surveillance video from Key and Kashmere High. The video showed several people removing computers and other equipment out of one school and into the other. The private investigation conducted by the law firm Martin Disiere Jefferson & Wisdom found multiple examples of price gouging of snacks for students, unauthorized fundraisers aimed at students, and thousands of dollars of missing equipment.