General Discussion

Several publicly available documents, including court documents, were sent to JG Consulting, along with an executive summary, Baker-Eubanks CEO Kim Cockerham said.

"We do not render an opinion on whether someone should be hired," said Cockerham in an interview with the Des Moines Register. "We give the report as we're hired to do. We reveal any criminal records that we find."

The criminal background check does not include confirming whether someone can legally work in the United States.

"That's not even a service that we offer," Cockerham said.

Ian Roberts, who immigration authorities say was living and working in the U.S. illegally and who resigned this week as Des Moines’ superintendent of schools, claimed in his 2023 application that he received a doctorate in urban educational leadership from Morgan State University in 2007, according to documents The Associated Press obtained through a public records request.

Although Roberts was enrolled in that doctorate program from 2002 to 2007, the school’s public relations office confirmed in an email that he didn’t receive that degree. It declined to say which degree requirements he hadn’t met.

The Des Moines school board learned before hiring Roberts that he hadn’t received the degree, but it still chose him to lead the district, which serves about 30,000 students.

“As part of the background check process that was done at the time, it indicated that he did not complete -- he began but did not complete a degree from Morgan State,” district spokesman Phil Roeder told the AP.