It appears the man in charge of Dallas County Schools may be on his way out.
It appears the man in charge of Dallas County Schools may be on his way out.
The board of the troubled school bus agency will meet Wednesday to talk about replacing Superintendent Rick Sorrells.
This comes on the heels of six month NBC 5 investigation that exposed serious safety concerns and financial problems at DCS.
A meeting agenda posted online said the DCS board will meet Wednesday to "consider appointing an interim superintendent" and to "consider ... authorizing a search for a permanent superintendent."
Just six days ago, Texas Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) called on Sorrells to step down.
“I mean, all of this happened under his watch, OK? And you need to have a change in leadership because you don't have, there's not any confidence at this point in time,” West said Tuesday in an interview with NBC 5 Investigates.
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At the time, Sorrells downplayed West’s comments and said he had no plans to leave.
“I met with Sen. West last Wednesday and had a conversation with him about the future of Dallas County Schools and plan to have a meeting with him next week to continue that conversation,” Sorrells said at a news conference.
NBC 5 has learned that meeting between Sorrells and West has been canceled.
"I'm glad to see that they are taking some action to replace the leadership,” West said Monday in a telephone interview.
What's not clear is whether Sorrells plans to resign or if the DCS board may ask him to leave.
In a statement to NBC, Sorrells said, "This is on the agenda for Wednesday and is a discussion between the board and me. It is not something I can talk about before then but we are focused on putting the safety of our students first and moving this agency forward."
For months Sorrells dodged questions about the spiraling troubles at DCS.
First a scandal involving taxpayer money used to pay tickets for bus drivers who ran red lights and then a budget crisis tied to a risky school bus stop-arm camera program.
An NBC 5 investigation also found DCS donated more than $4,000 of taxpayer money to a private charity Sorrells ran.
Sorrells defended those payments last week as a legitimate expense to market services DCS offers.
“I think the money was well spent in the programs we were trying to provide. They provide a lot of positives,” Sorrells said.
But now it appears his 13-year run as head of the area's largest bus agency may be coming to a stop.
