Leaders with the Texas Center for Arts + Academics will take no action against board chair Cheryl Bean as school parents demand her resignation following a now-deleted controversial social media post.
Bean, the Republican Party nominee for a key Texas House seat in November, told the Fort Worth Report that she will remain as chair of the charter school. Bean said she had unanimous support from the board, but only one director confirmed support to the Report.
The organization, which held its latest meeting Aug. 31, governs the Texas School of the Arts and Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, which offers dance, music and theater education to more than 1,000 children.
On July 1, Bean posted an AI-generated image of WNBA player Sophie Cunningham on a boat and pointing forward while her Indiana Fever teammates row — a visual modeled after the historic “Washington Crossing the Delaware” painting. The image depicted her Black teammates wearing swim floaties but not the white players.
Some parents viewed the post and others on Bean’s social media platforms as offensive and racially motivated. The image was deleted the day after it was posted. In a July 2 statement, Bean told families that the intent was to show female athletes standing strong and that she and her team did not notice the floaties and would never have posted the image if they had.
Roughly 25 parents and children gathered outside Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts campus on South Hulen Street an hour before the TCA+A board meeting.
Bean told the Report the post was a mistake and said she did “the professional thing of admitting it and taking it down.” The group of parents protesting represent a “very small piece of the school,” she said, adding that they have disapproved of leadership throughout her nearly three-year tenure.
“They obviously love it here — because the same parents have been complaining for years — since they never leave,” Bean said. “It would be so nice if, instead of complaining, they could become part of the solution. We want to give these students a really strong academic and fine arts education and an environment that’s safe for everybody.”
The seven-person board includes Bean and six other directors, according to the TCA+A website.
Board member Myong Chong said Bean has done great as board chair. Director John Bolser declined to comment when approached during the meeting. Board members Steven Jones, Donald W. Poole and Michael Wellbaum did not respond to requests for comment. Director Leslie Scott said she resigned from the school board in July.
Alycia Bennett, key protest organizer and parent to two children at the school, was disappointed in the lack of board action and said more parents are not speaking out publicly due to fear of retaliation.
“We still feel like there’s no accountability and it’s just really discouraging,” Bennett said. “I’m not going to stop fighting. She’s not fit to be the board chair, and I am just going to keep continuing to make sure that all the parents know that.”
Three TCA+A board members — Jones, Chong and Bolser — have contributed to Bean’s political campaign, according to Transparency USA.
Disapproval, support of Bean spoken at the mic
Tom Creedon stood outside the Fort Worth fine arts campus with a clear message on his poster board: Hold leaders to the standard we set for students.
Creedon, a parent of two students at the charter school, said Bean’s tenure has “hurt the school” and that her recently deleted post was the latest catalyst.
“I just don’t think someone who doesn’t think that anyone should be other than a rich white person should be able to get things when you’re at a school full of people who don’t fit that narrative,” he said.
During public comments, seven TCA+A parents called for the board to hold Bean to the same standards students have to follow as dictated in their handbook, which outlines policies around nondiscrimination, inclusion, respect and equality.
Jennifer Bellamy asked if directors would consider amending their bylaws to allow for one parent to serve as a voting board member.
“It’s really important to have clear measures of accountability from the board along with opportunities for parent voices to be heard in a really productive way,” she said.
Five other speakers, who did not disclose whether they were parents of current students, showed support of Bean’s leadership.
Rev. Daniel Salls said the characterization of Bean as a racist does not match the woman he knows. The Birchman Baptist Church minister noted he is an immigrant and has spent nearly 20 years building his life around his congregation.
The westside church is known for hosting conservative political events, including a Turning Point USA gathering last October.
“Because my own background and how people are treated because of their race or where they come from matters deeply to me,” he said. “What I know about Cheryl does not come from social media. It comes from years of watching her in real life.”
Daniel Bates, former board chair at TCA+A, said Bean has been doing a great job supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms and having “no males in girls bathrooms and vice versa.”
“Stay the course. Don’t be distracted,” he said.
President and Superintendent Anika Perkins addressed Bean’s deleted post during the Aug. 31 board meeting by sharing that she has been experiencing “slander, retaliation, harassment and threats” from parents since joining TCA+A in 2024.
Perkins alleged that she has been anonymously signed up for swim lessons and that she has received hurtful comments targeting her as a Black woman. She did not disclose names.
“What cannot be defended or tolerated is overt racism directed at me as a Black woman, particularly when those comments are made by individuals indignant about the racism in the post, but engaging in far worse and more repulsive attacks on me personally,” she said. “I welcome those apologies should they ever come.”
The TCA+A board’s next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sept. 28 at Texas School of the Arts at 6025 Village Parkway in Edgecliff Village.
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org.
The Fort Worth Report’s arts and culture coverage is supported in part by the Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation and the Virginia Hobbs Charitable Trust. At the Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
