A third-party employee claiming to be a teacher at Beaumont ISD’s Vincent Middle School stood before Jefferson County Criminal District Court Judge John Stevens on Tuesday, Oct. 15, pleading guilty to second-degree felony assault of a peace officer and admitting to using cocaine and marijuana a couple of weeks prior. Drug testing performed at the court’s request revealed the self-proclaimed educator was positive for drugs that would have been ingested much more recently.
Shania Brianca Mishaw, 25, of Beaumont, told Judge Stevens that, although she possessed no college degree, she was “certified” and had been working directly with students at Vincent Middle School for about a year. Mishaw, who boasts a record riddled with crime, admitted diagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder and a past of heavy drug use and gang affiliation – but said she was on the right track now that she’s been employed as an educator.
However, a new warrant for Mishaw’s arrest produced at court alleges further violent tendencies that have not been stopped by gainful employment.
Unhappy holidays
According to the probable cause affidavit for Mishaw’s arrest Christmas Eve 2023, the Beaumont Police Department (BPD) responded to a disturbance on Corley Avenue to find the accused showing signs of “excited delirium.” Mishaw’s family advised BPD Officer Dakota Gains that Mishaw was intoxicated on an unknown substance and was being violent and out of control. Her grandfather, while bleeding from multiple places on his face, told the officer that Mishaw assaulted him with a coffee pot.
As Gaines attempted to take Mishaw into custody, the would-be detainee resisted and bit the officer – a nibble that resulted in arrest and felony indictment for assault of a peace officer, as well as aggravated assault of a family member, a first-degree felony, and resisting arrest.
Just two months prior to her Dec. 24, 2023, arrest, Mishaw was arrested Oct. 22, 2023, as family members reported she was possibly intoxicated on synthetic marijuana.
Upon BPD’s arrival in October 2023, officers reportedly heard screaming inside the residence, then took Mishaw into custody and noted her fluctuating emotions and unsteady balance. While being placed under arrest for public intoxication, Mishaw reportedly resisted arrest, causing officers to secure her in the WRAP restraining device to be transported to jail.
A simple Google search of Mishaw’s name further yields a tale of the suspect’s Christmas Eve past – a heist in 2017, which includes photos of Mishaw and two other individuals swiping packages from the front porch of the home of Shawn David McCoy, who pleaded for Facebook users to help him find the present day Grinches. McCoy’s report, which garnered more than 3,400 comments and 12,000 shares and included Mishaw’s face clearly committing the crime, was rewarded with identification of the alleged thieves. McCoy said Mishaw, aka Sha Shaw, admitted to the crime and her mother contacted him to return the items just in time for his boys to wrap the canvas photos and give them to their mother and grandmother for the holiday.
From jail to middle school
Mishaw and her attorney, Langston Adams, had entered court Oct. 15 securely in agreement with the state’s attorney for deferred adjudicated probation in exchange for a guilty plea in the officer assault case, an opportunity for the felony conviction to be dismissed if Mishaw follows the terms of probation. Mishaw asked to serve the accompanying 90-day “up-front” jail sentence on weekends as not to interfere with her employment at BISD, to which the judge was inclined to agree. There was just one matter to attend to:
“Do they know about your rich drug usage,” Stevens asked, referring to BISD. Perusing the pre-sentence report provided by the probation department, Stevens listed a long line of illicit drugs Mishaw admitted to using just prior to her interview with the probation representative. “They let you work with kids?!”
“I know this isn’t the potential of what they can hire to teach children,” Stevens remarked. “Somebody’s gotta step in and do something here…”
Mishaw confirmed that she worked for her mom (Monica Mishaw), a contracted provider of services at Vincent Middle School. The Examiner discovered that Mishaw’s mother serves as Chief Operating Officer for Horizon Employment Specialists which, according to the Secretary of State, is registered to Anthony Eugene Robinson, Mishaw’s grandfather and victim in the Christmas Eve 2023 assault.
According to Beaumont ISD Executive Director of Human Resources Derwin Samuels, BISD is contracted with Horizon Vocational Services, aka Horizon Employment Specialists, which was contracted through Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), to participate in the vocational rehabilitation program.
“There is a program where this person comes in an hour a day with a specific student,” said Samuels. “Some of the vendors we vet ourselves, we look them up and I review them, but some have the same authority to view those as we do, and they sign off that they’ve viewed them through DPS.”
According to a statement from BISD, TWC requires the same stringent background check standards as school districts prior to any contracted training program’s members being allowed access to students.
“We have verified that this contracted service through TWC does indeed utilize the background check process through Texas DPS and that no one has been employed by them who had any criminal background prior to their hire date with the company,” BISD’s statement to The Examiner reads.
The Examiner’s Texas DPS search revealed that Mishaw did possess a criminal record prior to working at BISD.
A review of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s data shows Mishaw was charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon related to an arrest in 2019, for which she pled guilty and received one year of deferred probation, which was later revoked to leave a permanent conviction on Mishaw’s record. Additionally, DPS records a Galveston County domestic assault from April 2023.
Dates in dispute
When Mishaw actually worked at BISD is of dispute. According to Vincent Principal Dr. Shyulanda Randle-Filer, Mishaw worked at VMS for three months during 2022 and Aug. 26 – Oct. 8 of this year.
According to Mishaw’s statement to Judge Stevens, she had been working at Vincent Middle School for approximately a year – and was still employed at the school as of Oct. 15. Mishaw supports her statement with a photograph in what appears to be VMS classroom in February of this year, which is part of the 2023-2024 school year.
According to BISD, Mishaw would not have been alone with students of the district as the program is granted limited supervised interaction with students for the purposes of providing training. At no time is any outside aide ever left unsupervised with the students, BISD assured.
However, according to Monica Mishaw and a Horizon employee that worked directly with Shania Mishaw at Vincent Middle School, the outside workers were left to supervise students at the middle school.
Monica Mishaw and her employee stated in an exclusive interview with The Examiner that Horizon employees were the only adults supervising the students enrolled in the vocational rehabilitation program. Monica Mishaw told The Examiner that Vincent Middle School was Horizon’s first and only contract for these services and that Shania Mishaw and her coworker were the only two individuals employed by the agency.
Monica Mishaw, refusing to accept knowledge of Shania Mishaw’s criminal past, said her agency vetted the two employees used to provide service for at-risk youth at the BISD middle school and saw nothing wrong with the employee selection. Defendant Mishaw’s mother cannot deny, though, that, as of press time, the defendant was jailed for yet another criminal case arising out of Jefferson County.
In fact, as Judge Stevens was in the process of accepting the deal for Mishaw’s guilty plea in the officer assault case, it was brought to his attention that the defendant had a capias warrant in misdemeanor court for failure to appear. Prior to taking Mishaw into custody on said warrant, Judge Stevens ordered the detainee take a drug test – just to see.
Soon thereafter, as Stevens reviewed the results of Mishaw’s drug test, the defendant had a premonition: “I popped…my urine is dirty,” she said.
She was right; Stevens read aloud the toxicology revealing Mishaw tested positive for THC, opiates, amphetamines and methamphetamines.
“You came to court this way and you’re teaching kids,” Stevens worried. “This is terrible.”
The judge advised Mishaw that, due to the mass of drugs coursing through her blood when attending court, she would be serving her entire 90-day sentence up front and ordered her into custody.
“Actions have consequences, and you should be teaching that to kids, not victimizing yourself,” said Stevens.
According to BISD, the district’s contract with Horizon Employment Specialists ended earlier this month.