After the 2017-18 basketball season came to an end, the star of the Hillcrest High School team began skipping school — so many times that it landed him in a meeting with the principal.

Chris Bayer said he was trying to help, like he does with any kid with attendance issues. He and another school official talked with the student they knew as Rashun Richardson in February about a plan to get his credits back up.

"He looks us right in the eye and says thank you for helping him out," Bayer recalled.

Sidney Gilstrap-Portley (Dallas County Jail)

The principal didn't know then what he knows now: that the student's name wasn't Rashun, and that he didn't need the credits because he had already graduated from high school.

On Wednesday, Dallas ISD officials said they felt taken advantage of by a 25-year-old named Sidney Gilstrap-Portley who is accused of passing himself off as a homeless teen so he could play high school basketball again.

Gilstrap-Portley is a 2011 graduate of North Mesquite High School whose former basketball coach recognized him in late April and alerted staff at Hillcrest.

"It hurts your feelings because we're called to this profession. We want to be a part of it; we want to support the kids and open our arms for kids to help them out," Bayer said. "We feel bad for their stories and give them support, and to have him look us right in the eye and lie to us ... it's painful. It's hard to process."

Gilstrap-Portley was arrested Friday night on a charge of tampering with a government record. A woman also told reporters that he had dated her 14-year-old daughter. As the news spread about the allegations, so did a question: How did a 25-year-old enroll as a high school freshman?

When Gilstrap-Portley showed up wanting to enroll at Hillcrest, he claimed to have lived with his grandmother in Houston and described himself as a Hurricane Harvey evacuee with no permanent home in Dallas, district officials said.

Dallas ISD had already opened its doors to students displaced by Harvey, as encouraged by the Texas Education Agency. By mid-October, it had enrolled 276 Harvey evacuees.

District spokeswoman Robyn Harris also pointed to a federal law that requires school districts to immediately enroll homeless students, even if they are not accompanied by a parent or don't have the usual paperwork: identification, immunizations and proof of residence, for example.

Officials said Gilstrap-Portley first enrolled at another Dallas ISD campus, Skyline High School, in August and later enrolled at a Richardson ISD high school — but only for one day.

In November, Gilstrap-Portley asked to join Hillcrest. He provided a list of his previous schools and presented a withdrawal form from Skyline, Bayer said.

Gilstrap-Portley didn't respond to a phone call or a text message seeking comment on the allegations.

1 / 4Von Harris coaches the Hillcrest High boys basketball team during a playoff game with Seagoville in February. (Chris McGathey / Special Contributor) 2 / 4Sidney Gilstrap-Portley first enrolled at Skyline High using the name Rashun Richardson at a time when the district had opened its doors to Hurricane Harvey evacuees, Dallas ISD spokeswoman Robyn Harris said.(Courtesy photo) 3 / 4Sidney Gilstrap-Portley goes up for a shot in a playoff game against Seagoville in February. The Hillcrest High team finished 11-10 and could have to forfeit games.(Chris McGathey / Special Contributor) 4 / 4Sidney Gilstrap-Portley (middle) is accused of posing as a high school student so he could play for the Hillcrest High basketball team.(Chris McGathey)

The federal law that guarantees enrollment to homeless students — known as the McKinney-Vento Act — also requires that a student's new school request academic records from the child's last school, though it's not a condition for enrollment, said Joy Baskin, director of legal services for the Texas Association of School Boards.

If there's a large population of homeless students, there can be delays in checking records, Baskin said. She added that the federal law can also make schools vulnerable to fraud, but it's a trade-off for the protection offered to so many students.

"I can understand how the district got fooled," she said.

Harris, the district spokeswoman, said the school had done its due diligence within the parameters of the law. She noted that Hillcrest staff had reached out to South Houston High School — which she said Gilstrap-Portley cited as a previous school — and verified that a coach there knew of "Rashun Richardson."

Gilstrap-Portley's leaps from campus to campus during the fall semester didn't sound alarm bells in a school district that serves thousands of homeless students, Harris said.

"In Dallas, we have a very transient population of students anyway, so this isn't anything that would have been out of the norm," she said.

Art Del Barrio, a spokesman for Pasadena ISD, said there was no record of a Rashun Richardson at South Houston. The school's basketball coach didn't return messages.

Harris said the district's police department is conducting the criminal investigation, while administrators are looking into Gilstrap-Portley's enrollment process and how he was deemed eligible to play varsity basketball.

A spokeswoman for the University Interscholastic League, which governs Texas high school sports, said the organization is letting Dallas ISD complete its investigation. She said the minimum penalty for using an ineligible player is forfeiture of the games in which the player participated.

The Hillcrest Panthers finished the season with an 11-10 record.

Bayer apologized to Hillcrest families and said the school would review its actions to see what it could improve.

"I'm just as shocked and frustrated and hurt as the community and our students are," he said.

Students and basketball teammates had no idea about the allegations against Gilstrap-Portley until Tuesday, when the news broke about his arrest.

Noah Sample, 15, said he had wondered about his teammate's size. But he always insisted he was a 17-year-old.

"We just thought he was a big 17-year-old," Sample said.

Edgar Guereca, Gilstrap-Portley's former roommate and basketball teammate at Dallas Christian College, said Gilstrap-Portley rarely spoke about his major, career plans or pregnant girlfriend. He was friendly but focused on basketball, Guereca said.

Even among players his own age, Gilstrap-Portley was one of the heavier members of the team. He competed mostly as a forward, Guereca said, and played fewer minutes in the 2013-14 season than he would've liked.

But he never compared his time in the National Christian College Athletic Association to his high school basketball career. In fact, he didn't talk about high school at all.

"His goal, like anybody else who plays sports, would be to make it to the best league, the NBA," Guereca said. "Maybe he felt like he failed at it and wanted a redo."

Staff writers Dana Branham, Robert Wilonsky, Jennifer Emily, Claire Ballor and Claire Cardona contributed to this report.