GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Grand Prairie Collegiate Institute students are doing what district officials apparently failed to do: protect their classroom from potentially violent teachers.

A parent of a sixth-grader at the school who did not want to be identified told the Dallas News students conducted an internet search on their new teacher recently and were shocked to find out he was forced out of two previous school districts over threatening comments he allegedly made during divorce proceedings in 2013.

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The parent alleges STEM teacher Christopher Durham recently told students he was famous and several students who looked his name up on the internet, though Durham denied he made the comments.

Regardless, students found news reports detailing his arrest on three counts of “threatening an act of violence” in Oklahoma three years ago, and parents reported the alleged crimes to school officials.

“I don’t know his frame of mind. If something were to make him upset, what would happen?” the unidentified parent told the News.

“How did this man get hired?” she wondered. “Did they do a background check? Did it come up and they still hired him?”

“They were expecting him to be in a movie or on a TV show or winning the lottery — not getting arrested,” the mother said. “After kids read the stories, they’re freaking out.”

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Grand Prairie ISD spokeswoman Sam Buchmeyer said officials conducted a background check but because Durham’s criminal case is still pending, there is no conviction on his record and they were unaware of his pending legal issues. The district did not conduct a simple internet search, she said.

Records from the District Court of Oklahoma show that during Durham’s 2013 divorce he told his attorney that “Judge McGuire, (attorney) Tom Daniel, and (attorney) Ken Klingenberg do not realize what he is capable of and need to be careful.”

Durham’s attorney at the time, Chris Reser, told police Durham “stated he is capable of doing all kinds of things and is capable of doing things along the line of what just happened in Newtown, Connecticut.”

Durham denies he made the threatening comments, according to a NewsOK report at the time of his release from jail in February 2013.

“The charges are completely false, and I am confident I will be exonerated,” he said.

Durham was fired from Epic Charter Schools in Oklahoma City after his arrest, but secured a job with Polytechnic High in the Fort Worth Independent School District last year. Durham was forced out of that district when parents learned about his past, though district officials allowed him to resign and did not notify the state or parents, the Dallas News reports.

The Grand Prairie Independent School District issued a statement to parents on Monday that condemned the teacher’s alleged comments as “unacceptable in any part of society, and certainly unacceptable in a school setting,” WFAA reports.

The district told parents “Durham will be excused from all employment responsibilities” as district officials continue to investigate his situation.