Celina ISD Board Extends Superintendent's Contract 5-2 Amid Community Calls to Resign

Tom Bates stood at the public-comment microphone at Celina ISD's March 30 board meeting and delivered a verdict: Superintendent Tom Maglisceau should "immediately resign or be terminated." "This is your watch," Bates, a parent of district graduates, told the trustees. "You're in material breach of your contract with our district. Negligence, oversight, and failure to provide. That's all on you."

The board then voted 5-2 to extend Maglisceau's contract.

Jennifer Driver and Michael Wagoner cast the dissenting votes. The five in favor were Board President Tom Gravley, and Trustees Jarratt Calvert, Chuck Hansen, Tracy Balsamo, and Kelly Juergens. Calvert credited Maglisceau with showing up for the district's 6,500 students every day through the hardest months the district had seen.

The extension arrives five months after the October 2025 arrest of Caleb Elliott, a teacher and coach at Moore Middle School charged with secretly recording students in the boys' locker room. Investigators identified 39 boys as likely victims. The fallout spawned seven civil lawsuits against the district representing nearly all of them, with several suits naming Maglisceau alongside Moore Middle School Principal Allison Ginn and former athletic director Bill Elliott, Caleb's father. Bill Elliott retired in January after voluntarily surrendering his teaching license to the Texas Education Agency, which placed him on a do-not-hire list.

A third-party investigation commissioned by Maglisceau and completed December 31, 2025, found no prior institutional knowledge of Caleb Elliott's conduct. Community members and plaintiffs' attorneys have challenged that conclusion, arguing administrators had warning signs before the October arrest.

Chris Caldwell, who has two children at Moore Middle School and one at Celina High School, told the board that trustees who were "good buddies" with the now-disgraced Bill Elliott owed the community their resignations as well. Maglisceau, who addressed the packed room before public comment opened, said: "There are some people in our community that are tearing into one another, and it hurts my heart."

The board also introduced Brent Whitson as the district's new athletic director and head football coach during the same session.

Driver faces voters in May alongside an open seat created after Gravley, who voted to extend Maglisceau's contract, withdrew from his own re-election campaign. District spokeswoman Nancy Alvarez said a copy of Maglisceau's updated contract was not yet available for public review. The May election will offer the first direct measure of whether the board's 5-2 confidence in Maglisceau reflects Celina's broader will, or simply its current limits.