A volleyball coach charged with sexually grooming and abusing an underage Lockhart Junior High School student is now the target of a civil lawsuit along with Lockhart Independent School District.
Aaron Aguilar, 28, was arrested in April and charged with sexual performance by a child under the age of 14. He was later also charged with possession of child pornography.
The victim’s mother filed a federal lawsuit against Aguilar and Lockhart ISD on August 25.
Aguilar was no longer employed by Lockhart ISD at the time of his arrest.
District spokesman Adam Miller told Texas Scorecard at the time that Aguilar was a teaching aide/assistant from January 2023 to March 2024 and was terminated due to job performance unrelated to any legal issues.
However, the mother’s lawsuit accuses Aguilar of using his position as an education/PE aide and volleyball coach at Lockhart Junior High to access her then-sixth grade daughter’s phone information and to physically assault her in a school locker room, touching her genitals and anus.
Aguilar then sent the girl sexually explicit phone messages and images, including videos of himself performing sex acts.
He further used his position of authority to coerce and threaten the girl to go along and not tell anyone, according to the complaint.
The victim’s mother eventually discovered the messages and contacted the police, leading to Aguilar’s arrest.
The complaint states that “the threat of sexual grooming, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse of students is a known, grave problem running rampant in school districts due to educator misconduct” and alleges that Lockhart ISD “is aware that educator misconduct is an issue in its school district.”
“In fact, several of its personnel have been charged for inappropriate conduct with students in the years 2012, 2017, and 2019,” according to the complaint.
A report by John Ferrara at The Hawk’s Eye—Consulting and News summarizes the key allegations against the district:
- Prior cases of employee misconduct, yet failure to implement stronger protective policies.
- Screening procedures that failed to reveal risks making Aguilar unsuitable to work with students.
- Lack of training to spot predatory behavior or signs of student abuse, plus poor employee supervision.
- “Dysfunctional” Title IX enforcement, including inadequate reporting mechanisms and failures to investigate suspicions of sexual abuse.
The lawsuit alleges Lockhart ISD was “deliberately indifferent to the risk” that Aguilar posed to students and is thus liable for the “invasive, severe, and objectively offensive sexual, emotional, and mental abuse” suffered by the plaintiff’s daughter.
The complaint also alleges that prior to the 2024-25 school year, one or more LISD employees learned or suspected that Aguilar had used his status as a physical education teacher’s aide “in control of young male students, to isolate and sexually assault one or more male students.”
The plaintiff is seeking unspecified monetary damages to compensate for injuries suffered by her daughter.
Other School Districts Facing Lawsuits
At least half a dozen other districts are also being sued in federal courts by parents of children who were sexually abused by school employees—teachers, coaches, bus drivers—under the noses of administrators.
In most of these cases, the predatory employees have been criminally charged.
Prosper ISD was sued in August 2022 by parents of two elementary school sisters who were routinely molested by a bus driver for most of the 2021-22 school year. He was arrested in May 2022 and then committed suicide in jail. The district never notified the families of other students who rode the child molester’s bus.
The district and Superintendent Holly Ferguson continue to argue in court that the family is not entitled to sue them due to governmental immunity, which protects them from liability when they fail to protect students from sexual abuse.
Lorena ISD was sued in 2023 along with Lorena Primary School Principal April Jewell by parents of a 5-year-old girl repeatedly molested at school by her pre-K teacher. The parents allege Jewell turned a blind eye to multiple staff members’ reports about the teacher, who later confessed and is now in prison.
Last month, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Jewell’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit against her, rejecting her claim of qualified immunity due to the conscience-shocking nature of the allegations.
Perryton ISD was sued in 2024 by the father of a then-15-year-old female student who was sexually assaulted by the school’s football coach and athletic director Cole Underwood multiple times on campus. The lawsuit alleges district officials knew of Underwood’s reputation as a “Perv” at his previous job in Amarillo ISD and that multiple students, teachers, coaches, and community members warned district administrators about Underwood’s inappropriate relationship with the female athlete.
Underwood was first arrested in April 2024. He has since pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Last month, the plaintiff subpoenaed records regarding Underwood from Amarillo ISD and the Amarillo Police Department.
Klein ISD was sued in February of this year after high school teacher Kendria Grigsby and her adult son were arrested in 2024 for sex trafficking female students. Since then, more victims have come forward. The lawsuit alleges a teacher alerted school administrators about signs a student was being abused but was ignored.
Fort Bend ISD was also sued in February. Parents allege the district failed to protect students from sexual abuse by a kindergarten teacher at Goodman Elementary that occurred in the 2023-24 school year. District officials concluded the allegations were unsubstantiated but said the teacher would not return to the school.
One parent said she had made allegations against the same teacher the previous year, accusing him of being inappropriate with her daughter.
Trinity Valley School was sued in March. Parents accuse the Fort Worth private school of covering up the sexual abuse of at least 16 elementary and middle school girls by piano teacher Trent Muse, who was charged last year with five felony counts of indecency with a child by exposure. School employees have also sued the school for alleged misconduct, retaliation, and misleading families about Muse’s firing.
Muse pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
State-Sponsored Child Abuse
A shocking study published by parent advocacy group Texas Education 911 titled State-Sponsored Child Abuse found more than 2,500 cases of educator sexual misconduct had been reported to the state in less than three years.
Based in part on that study, the Texas Legislature passed a measure this year that eliminates “immunity” from civil liability for government schools and their employees when they are grossly negligent in cases of educators sexually abusing students, or when they fail to report abuse.
The measure, known as House Bill 4623, took effect on September 1.
Another new law, Senate Bill 571, took effect in June. The law purports to strengthen educator misconduct reporting rules meant to eliminate “passing the trash”—covering up teachers’ misdeeds, allowing them to be hired in other school districts and to potentially harm more students.
The laws are not retroactive, but from now on school districts and employees—including school board trustees—can be held accountable for failing to prioritize student safety.
Hundreds of Texas educators have been accused of sex crimes involving students and other children in just the past few years.
As Ferrara asked on behalf of Lockhart ISD families, “[H]ow many warnings must be ignored before schools fulfill their duty to shield students from those placed in positions of trust?”
