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Humble Independent School District Superintendent Elizabeth fa*gen kept her job Tuesday, avoiding a potential school board vote on her employment status following an investigation into her husband, who retired this week from his position as the district’s athletics and fine arts executive director.
Humble trustees opted not to take any action against fa*gen during a heated board meeting that exposed rifts among trustees and prompted calls from community members for more information about the investigation into fa*gen’s husband, Troy Kite.
A board meeting agenda showed Kite faced a Title IX investigation related to accusations levied by an unnamed, high-ranking administrator in Humble’s athletics department. Board members and district officials did not share details about the allegations, findings from the investigation or the timing of Kite’s resignation.
A district spokesperson confirmed the trustees received a final investigative report Sunday about the allegations, which do not involve claims of misconduct with students.
Title IX investigations can involve a wide range of gender-based allegations, including sex discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual violence. Kite has not been charged with any crimes and does not face any civil lawsuits.
fa*gen declined to speak with the Houston Landing following Tuesday’s meeting. In a statement issued Wednesday, following the initial publication of this article, fa*gen said she recused herself from the matter involving her husband in May 2023 and has “made no decisions regarding any of the pending Title IX complaints, including spending.”
The investigation into Kite and the subsequent fallout for fa*gen have divided Humble’s seven-member board, with the acrimony spilling into the public Tuesday.
Three trustees expressed outrage that the board’s leadership placed the item related to fa*gen — “motion to consider and take possible action regarding employment and duties of superintendent” — with relatively minimal notice. In other school districts, similar language often appears on board agendas before trustees vote to fire a superintendent.
“What’s going on with this board is unacceptable,” Trustee Marques Holmes said. “The golden thread within all this is that we are not aligned.”
The three trustees — Holmes, Martina Lemond Dixon and Robert Sitton — declared their allegiance Tuesday to fa*gen, who has led the roughly 47,000-student district in northeast Harris County for nearly eight years.
“When I saw that, on the agenda on Saturday, it literally just took my breath away,” Lemond Dixon said. “Number one, we have never, ever, ever discussed anything regarding the superintendent’s employment ever. … This is totally unacceptable. In my opinion, we have the best superintendent by far.”
The four trustees who did not voice support for fa*gen, including Board President Robert Scarfo, did not speak directly to her employment or why the item was on the agenda. The four board members also did not discuss their decision to remove it.
A district spokesperson said fa*gen disclosed her relationship with Kite, a Humble employee since 1999, to board members in March 2022. The couple married in 2023. Texas nepotism laws did not apply to the couple because Kite joined the district well before fa*gen’s hiring.
While fa*gen retained the support of Humble board members Tuesday, several community members who spoke at the meeting said they have lost confidence in the district’s leadership and demanded clarity on the situation. Humble parent Erick Willing told fa*gen that “there is no public trust in your ability to lead this district.
“What prevents a call for your resignation is the fear that this board will pick your replacement,” Willing said.
Heeding calls from community members for more transparency, trustees voted 4-3 to release documents related to the investigation into Kite requested by multiple community members through Texas’ open records law. However, it’s unclear when the materials will be made public and what details will be released.
“This has dragged on a very long time,” said Scarfo, who supported expediting the release of records. “It needs to be brought to the public, so they can know what all of their money was spent on.”
The records vote once again split the board, with the three trustees who supported fa*gen opposing their release. Sitton said the district is embroiled in several “intertwined” Title IX investigations, costing the district nearly $600,000 to date. He opposed releasing the documents because the other investigations are not finished, which he said could lead to community members drawing conclusions without full context.
fa*gen faced community opposition following her hiring in 2016, largely due to her battles with teachers unions and her support for a voucher program at her previous superintendent job in Colorado, but she has generally enjoyed strong support in Humble.
fa*gen led the district through major logistical challenges brought by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which forced the months-long closure of Kingwood High School. She also maintained community backing as she and Humble’s board pushed more aggressively than other Houston-area districts to reopen schools in August 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2022, Humble voters overwhelmingly supported a $775 million bond, signaling support for the district’s leadership.
But Humble’s leadership has shown cracks in cohesion over the past several months, drawing complaints from some parents. Holly Martherly, who has a fourth-grader in the district, said she and her friends often joke about “getting the popcorn ready” to watch the board’s meetings.
“For quite some time, we’ve had a lot of drama,” Matherly said. “As entertaining as these meetings can be, I would really like the board to get down to the boring stuff.”
Update, April 10, 4:30 p.m.: This story has been updated to include a statement from Humble Superintendent Elizabeth fa*gen and additional information about the timeline of the investigation into her husband.
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