Another Lampasas Independent School District educator is gone following allegations of misconduct with a student.
Lampasas High School Principal Paul Weinheimer notified families on January 6 that a “faculty member” had been investigated for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a student.
Weinheimer stated that as a result of the investigation by district administrators and the school resource officer, the unnamed faculty member was “terminated effective immediately.”
He also said that the allegations had been reported to the Texas Education Agency, as required by state law.
“The safety, well-being, and trust of our students remain our highest priority in conjunction with maintaining a safe and respectful learning environment,” added Weinheimer. “When concerns arise, they are addressed promptly and thoroughly.”
Superintendent Chane Rascoe later told the Lampasas Dispatch Record that a preliminary investigation by the Lampasas Police Department found no evidence of a criminal “improper relationship” between the teacher and student, although the two had exchanged Snapchat messages.
Rascoe said that because the teacher was not certified, the district was able to dismiss him quickly—in this case, for violating policies against staff communicating with students without parents’ knowledge or on social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram.
Neither Rascoe nor Weinheimer named the teacher, but local families identified him as 28-year-old Dakota Kelly Matthews, who was a Career and Technical Education teacher in the department’s Automotive and Collision Repair program.
Documents obtained by Texas Scorecard from Lampasas ISD show that Matthews applied for a job with the district in June 2024 and was offered a position for the 2024-25 school year in November 2024. The documents also show the district ran a computerized criminal history check on Matthews.
On December 5, 2024, Matthews signed a pre-employment affidavit attesting that he had “never been charged with, adjudicated for, or convicted of having an inappropriate relationship with a minor.”
Lampasas County court records do show that Matthews was arrested in 2018 on a charge of displaying harmful material to a minor, a Class A misdemeanor, but there is no record of a final disposition beyond a scheduled plea hearing in November 2018.
Despite his dismissal for cause and a report to the TEA, Matthews does not appear in the Do Not Hire Registry of individuals not eligible for employment by a Texas school district.
Matthews is not the first Lampasas ISD teacher accused of sexual misconduct with students during the past two years, despite the Central Texas school district having just 3,600 students and 580 staff members.
In 2025, band director Jeremy Flint was arrested on a felony charge of improper relationship between educator and student and sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a student. Flint had been allowed to resign when the allegations arose but was not publicly named until his arrest months later—although parents knew his identity.
His wife Chloe Flint, who also worked for the district, permanently surrendered her teaching certificate for failing to report her husband’s abuse of the girl.
In June 2025, teacher Bonnie Raye Hurt was reported to the TEA for improper relationship with a student or minor (IRWSM). Hurt had taught in Lampasas ISD since 2023. She previously taught in Shepherd ISD and was an aide in Waco ISD. A formal investigation is pending.
Another unnamed teacher was placed on administrative leave over an unspecified “issue” in March 2025—the same time Elizabeth Ashley Duran was reported to TEA for IRWSM. Duran, a 2010 Lampasas High School graduate who returned in 2023 as the head girls’ soccer coach, never went back to work for the district. A formal investigation is pending.
In 2024, Lampasas High School girls’ basketball coach Mark Myers pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to improper communications with students.
Improper relationship complaints were also reported against two school resource officers, in 2022 and 2024, but both cases were closed with no further action.
“This is just getting embarrassing at this point,” one local resident commented on a community Facebook page. “While we have some great teachers who actually care, something is seriously wrong.”
Over the past few years, hundreds of Texas teachers have been accused of sex crimes against students and other children, and thousands have been reported to the TEA for sexual and violent misconduct.
