Lance Hindt controversy

Katy ISD Superintendent Lance Hindt has been the subject of controversy since March 2018. Here is a brief timeline of events:

March 19, 2018

Greg Barrett, a Katy-area businessman, attends a school board meeting at Katy ISD and decides to speak publicly. Barrett claims that Katy ISD superintendent Lance Hindt beat him up in the restroom at the middle school the two attended more than 30 years ago.

March 20, 2018

Hindt releases a statement after a video of Barrett's claims go viral. "As superintendent in three school districts in Texas, I have always tried to create an environment where every student is safe - physically and emotionally. But when an individual impugns my character and reputation as the instigator of those actions, I am disappointed because it simply is not true," Hindt said.

March 21, 2018

Barrett's claims attract national attention, including stories in the Washington Post.

March 23, 2018

Nitant Patel, 19, a former Katy ISD student, launches a Change.org petition calling for Hindt's firing. Patel told the Houston Chronicle he started the petition to "hold our public official accountable."

March 26, 2018

Ashley Vann, president of Katy's school board, says during a meeting that it "fully vetted Dr. Lance Hindt." "His strong leadership and fulfillment of our vision since then has affirmed our decision. We stand united with Dr. Hindt today," Vann added

March 27, 2018

A Katy watchdog website called A Better Legacy discovers legal documents from 1983 of a now dismissed case involving Hindt. The lawsuit was brought by William Leroy Stein, a Katy banker, who claimed Hindt brutally beat him on Feb. 18, 1983. This court document shows Stein's accounting of the alleged events that night.

March 29, 2018

A Change.org petition titled "We, the community within Katy ISD, support our Superintendent Dr. Lance Hindt" is started to support Hindt. "The signers of this petition are showing the school board and employees of Katy ISD that we strongly support Dr. Hindt and we know that he is the person that needs to sit in his current position of Superintendent," the petition states.

March 29, 2018

Circuit Judge David Carpenter of Alabama's 10th district recalled attending Taylor High School with Hindt in 1982. "He was physically threatening some of my teammates, just menacing them, standing over them and eventually started throwing weight plates at them, 25-pound weight plates at them," Carpenter told Fox 26. "He liked to brag about beating up other people and at one point he even bragged about beating up a police officer."

April 2, 2018

Hindt sent a letter a letter to all Katy ISD employees, apologizing to the district for all the attention these accusations have created. "It is unfortunate that half-truths, viral videos, edited tape, false statements, and gotcha moments are a part of our modern mainstream news and social media culture," Hindt wrote. "Although I do not believe the attacks on our great school district, our school board or me are over, I remain steadfast in my commitment to Katy ISD."

May 10, 2018

Hindt announces his resignation during a special board meeting, citing a "smear campaign" that has been waged against him. He will step down in January 2019. In addition to hiring the Houston law firm of Feldman and Feldman to pursue a possible defamation case, the board of trustees also amended Hindt's contract with the district. On his last day of work, Hindt will receive $750,000, an amount equal to two years of his base pay. The board did not release the details of his amended contract until the next day, however.

May 21, 2018

Katy ISD school board president Ashley Vann announced she is stepping down. "To put it simply, I'm tired y'all," said Vann. "My family's tired. The past two months have shown me a lot about myself and the one thing that I know is that the wind is out of my sails."

July 6, 2018

It is reported that Hindt, who recently announced his plans to resign amid controversy over decades-old bullying allegations, won't be sitting with the district's board of trustees for coming meetings.

Aug. 3, 2018

Keith Rowland, principal of South Paulding High School in Douglasville, Ga., said he did a side-by-side comparison of his 2008 dissertation, "The Relationship of Principal Leadership and Teacher Morale," for Liberty University with a paper Lance Hindt completed four years later, titled "The Effects of Principal Leadership on Teacher Morale and Student Achievement," for his education doctorate at UH. Rowland claimed that Katy ISD's outgoing superintendent plagiarized his doctoral dissertation