A few weeks ago, I glanced down at my phone while waiting at baggage claim after a flight into Charlotte. It caught me by total surprise to see the Graham Independent School District (ISD) making the rounds online because of rage posts made by the school’s Assistant Athletic Director Mike Carroll. Graham is a small city in northcentral Texas, a place that I thought of as a close relation of Mayberry during the years I lived there. The town I knew as a teen would not have put up with openly vitriolic spasms by school officials, but times have changed. 

I was fortunate enough to spend the most formative years of my youth in north-central Texas during the 1990s. It was a place where I learned the value of hard work and had respect modeled to me by many of the wonderful people who made the region a great place to grow up. It was a joy to return in 2018 to help dedicate the New Century Veterans Memorial, and again this year to attend my old church and visit friends in the city while in the area to attend a conference. So it came as a shock to see a school district official with Carrol’s seniority being exposed online for a history of social media posts calling for violence against people with whom he disagrees. 

The spotlight fell upon Carroll’s account for one of his posts that said Dr. Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Federation of Children and school choice advocate, “is a straight running tool who has a very punchable [sic] face.” 

In other public posts, Carroll wrote: “I really want to scissor kick [professional golfer] Ian Poulter in the back of the head.” Elsewhere, he posted to X, “If child abuse wasn’t illegal in this state, I’d kick your @ss,” Some of his other expressions include, “That kid right there will make you want to chop your balls off.” If you don’t follow his suggestion for self-neutering, perhaps you would be convinced to take him up on an encouragement to commit murder from his post that stated, “Do us all a favor and actually kill him.”

In military life, from which I recently departed after 20 years, one does not lay aside citizenship to serve. Similarly, Carroll did not lay aside his First Amendment rights in order to take a leadership position in the Graham ISD. Nevertheless, to accept a vocational position of influence over children at taxpayer expense, he assumed a mantle that brings with it an expectation of wisdom in both thought and action. Carroll’s online expression makes it clear that he fails that test. Disagreeing with people and engaging in debate is a part of societal engagement. But Carroll’s actions went far beyond that, expressing violent desire toward people merely for having a different point of view. 

As the saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If the assistant athletic director for the Graham ISD feels comfortable encouraging acts of physical assault against others, just imagine what he thinks but refrains from saying in public view. It begs the question of how Carroll feels toward fellow teachers and administrators, along with students who don’t meet his personal definition of perfection, and what he would do to them if he could get away with it. Reports from people I know in the area indicate that many parents are aware of Carroll’s temper. Yet, it does not appear to be enough a concern to his supervisors to address. If I saw Carroll’s violent social media fantasy from afar, imagine what the young people he interacts with see modeled to them through interactions secluded from public view. 

School board members and the district’s Athletic Director, Clay McChristian, are reported to be aware of this problem. However, those who run Graham ISD chose not to make any public statement about Carroll’s behavior. Furthermore, they do not appear to have taken meaningful action to address this situation, which should be of deep concern to all parents who entrust their children to the care of the school district. That is a failure of leadership on a grand scale.

Fortunately, there are other places where those charged to provide leadership in public education do not shirk their responsibilities. Just to the north in Oklahoma, the state superintendent for public schools, Ryan Walters, initiated action to revoke the teaching certificate for public school teacher Alison Scott in response to her Facebook comment wishing that the young man who shot at former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania had a better rifle scope. At present, that discipline process is still underway. Progressively-minded public school teachers seem to have far more due process protections than their truth-minded colleagues who say things like "Boys are boys" and "Girls are girls." Those so labeled as "extremists" by the cultural zeitgeist merely for speaking truth can be shown the door in short order. 

Surprisingly, action can be taken against rogue teachers faster at the university level than in the public K-12 system. Professor John James at Bellarmine University was suspended for tweeting, “If you’re gonna shoot, man, don’t miss,” in reference also to the first attempt to assassinate Donald Trump. He would have had endless protections for encouraging further violence against Republicans if his employment was as a public school teacher. The long and arduous process to discipline primary and secondary public school officials goes to show the power of teachers' unions, which are clearly interested in self-preservation far more than the safety and welfare of the children entrusted to their care during school hours. These unions similarly hamstring conservative legislators where I live in Kansas, using the bully pulpit of the largest employer in rural districts to steamroll constituent concerns and legislator convictions.

You might think that the case of Carroll’s posts calling for open violence would have attracted the attention of the local press there in Texas, but you would be wrong. In an email reply to me on this topic, Kylie Bailey—publisher of the city newspaper The Graham Leader—wrote: 

“Our goal as a newspaper is to inform, not to incite; to provide facts, not opinions — and we have a strong stance on not allowing what some consider to be ‘hot topics’ dictate our coverage. We have no agenda here and do not allow our publication to be used to push one.”

She went on to dismiss the newsworthiness of Carroll’s actions because not enough citizens have demanded coverage. Having worked around news for over 20 years, I was surprised to have a journalist tell me that something is not news until enough citizens tell news agents to cover it. But I suspect this is not about crowdsourcing as much as local politics at work. It is worth noting that Graham ISD’s athletic program is the largest source of content for the local paper, and advertising revenue is closely tied to supporting the local team. News is a business, and money is inevitably the greatest influence on what gets into print. 

If it can happen in a small, generally conservative town in rural north Texas, it can happen where you are. Parental compliance with this system emboldens the revolutionaries who are aggressively at work trying to sever the next generation from any semblance of American values. 

When a taxpayer-funded official who has access to children displays a clear tendency to call for violence repeatedly in public forums, silence from his superiors in local government and the local press is not a virtue. Those who manage school districts across the nation must make it clear that not only is it out of bounds for students to call for violence against others, but the same goes for school officials. Where school officials fail to make it happen, parents must. Progressives are entrenched on the battlefield, even in rural America. We must stand to meet and defeat them in this ideological combat that they have brought to our doorsteps. 

Chase Spears served as a U.S. Army public affairs officer for 20 years, retiring as a Major (Promotable) in 2023. Among other pursuits, he enjoys writing about topics that include Civil-Military Relations, Leadership, and Policy. Chase holds a Ph.D. in leadership communication from Kansas State University, and today, he runs a leadership practice that helps people to turn brave ideas into action. You can find him on X/LinkedIn/Substack/YouTube @drchasespears.