An administrator from the Irving Independent School District resigned this week after a conversation filmed between himself and what appeared to be the prospective parent of a transgender student was posted online, eliciting conservative vitriol and resulting in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott calling for a criminal and civil investigation into the educator.
The video is the latest produced by conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media. The group’s website claims to use “investigative journalism and cultural activism to expose corruption and hold bad public policy actors accountable.” On the media bias tracking website AllSides, Accuracy in Media is identified as being right-leaning, the most conservative ranking on the scale.
For months, representatives for the group have scheduled meetings with North Texas educators under the guise of parents looking to move to Texas from another state. They express concern over Texas' various conservative education initiatives, such as the ban on DEI or transgender athletes; unbeknownst to the educators, they are being filmed throughout the conversation.
In the most recently released video, which was reposted by the right-wing X account LibsOfTikTok and has been viewed 720,000 times, the posing parent asks Reny Lizardo, the district’s executive director of Campus Operations, if Irving ISD would allow her transgender daughter to join a girl’s sports team.
“Could you legally change a gender on a birth certificate? I don’t know enough about the subject, is that possible?” Lizardo asks.
“I believe in some places you can, yes,” the undercover AIM representative responds.
“So, if you can get that done and you turn [in to] us a birth certificate that says this gender, that’s the gender we go with,” Lizardo responds.
In what Accuracy In Media claims is the “gotcha” moment of the interview, Lizardo warns the woman that Texas’ conservative culture could lead to an uproar if other parents or students were to learn of her daughters’ transgender identity.
“It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught,” he says.
According to Accuracy In Media, the video was filmed in December. The group’s president, Adam Guillette, returned to Irving ISD several weeks later to confront Lizardo, who denied knowledge of the conversation.
Abbott retweeted the video earlier this week and called for investigations into Lizardo’s conduct.
“This Irving ISD Administrator should be fired on the spot,” Abbott wrote. “Has Irving ISD and its employees been involved in a fraudulent breach of state laws & a cover up? We must get the facts.”
Abbott’s tweet has been viewed nearly a million times.
In a statement provided by Irving ISD to the Observer, the district said Lizardo’s statements were “obtained under false pretenses” and claimed that because AIM did not identify themselves as a media organization the interviews “constitute a breach of security.” The district added that the statements conveyed in the video do not represent the views or policies of the district.
“The footage has been edited and is an incomplete representation of the entire conversation, making it difficult to properly assess its probative value. Nevertheless, we want to reiterate that Irving ISD complies with all state and federal laws and all employees are expected to adhere to any and all legal and ethical standards,” the district said. “The individual identified was acting outside of his role as it relates to legal and regulatory expertise. While the matter
continues to be under investigation, the individual identified in the video has tendered his resignation.”
The district said it accepted Lizardo’s resignation and emphasized that all Irving ISD student athletes are participating in the sport that correlates with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Targeting Other North Texas Districts
In 2024, Accuracy in Media collected similar videos in Plano ISD, Mesquite ISD, Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, McKinney ISD, Keller ISD, Saginaw ISD and Coppell ISD. Guillette displays the videos on a mobile billboard that drives around North Texas, exposing what he believes is evidence of a coordinated subversion of Texas’ standards.
Will Ragland, vice president of research, outreach and advocacy for the Center of American Progress, told the Observer last year that the billboard campaigns are “weak sauce” designed to “get parents riled up.”
This Irving ISD Administrator should be fired on the spot.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 29, 2025
Both criminal & civil investigations must be taken against both the Administrator & Irving ISD.
Has Irving ISD and its employees been involved in a fraudulent breach of state laws & a cover up?
We must get the facts. https://t.co/G2w5guqezl
“It's very intimidating for any teacher to have their face on a billboard with whatever campaign call to action that these people are trying to push,” Ragland said. “Intimidation is part of the tactics being deployed here, and across Project 2025, to make sure people fall in line.”
Accuracy in Media’s arrival in North Texas coincides with the state Legislature’s rallying around school choice, a voucher system that would financially aid parents who choose to remove their students from public schools. Education experts have warned that the voucher program — which Abbott has marked as the top priority for the legislative session and could be voted on as soon as next week — will leave behind the state’s neediest children and destabilize Texas’ teacher retirement fund.
But Accuracy in Media maintains that school choice is the only solution to fixing the “Marxist and woke agendas” of Texas’ educators. Last year, the Observer found a mistakenly filed tax return that lists the financial donations received by Accuracy in Media between May 2022 and April 2023. The contributions show the group receives funding from Project 2025 supporters and may have received a donation from a key benefactor behind the school choice initiative, Jeff Yaas of Pennsylvania.
Despite Yaas’ name and office address being listed on the tax return under a whopping $1 million donation, AIM states the listing was an accounting error.
It isn’t beyond the realm of believability that Yaas would be interested in supporting AIM’s school choice message, though. A major proponent for the program, Yass contributed $10 million to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last year, despite the fact that the governor is not up for reelection. According to Philadelphia Magazine, Yass has also financially supported as many as 15 candidates across the state running for office who were signed off on by Abbott.
After many of those seats were won by the Abbott-approved candidates, the governor now appears to have the votes for school choices’ fast track.
