A mom says Magnolia Independent School District administrators knew about 2nd-grade teacher Jason Maldonado’s inappropriate behavior with students long before he was arrested for sexual misconduct.
Tayla Craig told Texas Scorecard that she and other parents had been reporting red flags regarding Maldonado’s classroom conduct since he started teaching at Magnolia Parkway Elementary in 2022—from sexualized comments and boundary crossing to excessive and inappropriate touching.
But Craig says school officials minimized parents’ concerns and failed to take meaningful protective action, allowing Maldonado continued access to the students he is now accused of molesting.
Instead of investigating or reporting Maldonado, administrators passed the teacher from 4th grade to 2nd grade and then assigned him to ESL students—each move placing him among more vulnerable children.
“Parents of Magnolia ISD deserve to know,” said Craig. “This is about transparency, accountability, and making sure parents have the information they need to protect and advocate for their children.”
Maldonado’s Arrest
Maldonado was arrested in May 2026 and charged with attempted improper relationship between educator and student, a third-degree felony.
But he had been on leave since December 2025, after another mom reported him to Child Protective Services. That’s when Montgomery County Precinct 5 Constables began investigating Maldonado.
Craig alleges Principal Jennifer Harless only took “swift action” after the parent stated she intended to report Maldonado to CPS.
Several students told investigators that Maldonado subjected them to inappropriate physical contact while in his classroom, including prolonged hugging, having girls sit in his lap and straddle him, and touching them underneath or inside their clothing. The alleged incidents occurred during the 2024–25 and 2025–26 school years.
Maldonado is currently free on bond, but the criminal investigation remains ongoing and may result in more charges.
Meanwhile, Maldonado’s arrest triggered a mandatory suspension of his teaching certificate, under a state law (Senate Bill 571) passed in 2025 with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The Texas Education Agency and State Board for Educator Certification indefinitely suspended Maldonado’s teaching credentials on July 30 and placed him on the state’s Do Not Hire Registry pending the outcome of the criminal prosecution.
A Pattern
Craig’s daughter was in Maldonado’s 2nd-grade class in the 2024-25 school year.
That’s when she reported Maldonado to Principal Harless for his overly “affectionate” behavior toward girls, which she’d observed while in his class and at school events. “He really loves hugs, and he only hugs the girls,” her daughter had told her.
She also reported that Maldonado had students get underneath his desk, which he called a “cool-down area.”
Craig said Harless assured her she would handle it and reportedly had a conference with Maldonado in November 2024.
“A few weeks later, I went to the school, and the mat was still underneath his desk,” Craig said. “The school has since told us that an administrator had witnessed the location underneath his desk and saw no problem with it.”
Craig later learned that Maldonado had been cautioned in November 2023 about his inappropriate behavior with students, after another mother had reported him to the counselor at the time, Elisa Krug, for inappropriately touching her daughter.
She also learned that a parent had reported Maldonado in 2022—his first year at Magnolia Parkway Elementary—for making sexual comments to a boy in his 4th-grade class. Craig said the school didn’t keep a record of the complaint but moved Maldonado the following year to a 2nd-grade class.
“If they had ever taken note or record of any of this in his personnel file, they might have noticed a pattern, but I guess they didn’t,” said Craig.
Craig’s Daughter and Maldonado
In early May of this year, Craig got a call from the constable investigating Maldonado. Craig’s daughter had been identified by a classmate—who was now in 3rd grade and had just made an outcry—as one of Maldonado’s “favorites” and a possible victim.
Until that time, Craig and other parents of students in Maldonado’s prior years’ classes had no idea there was an investigation, because the school hadn’t given constables their names.
During a forensic interview, Craig’s daughter revealed that Maldonado had put his hands down her pants on multiple occasions and had the girl pose for photos that the parents never saw.
Craig and her husband were shocked.
“I was sure she would tell me,” said Craig. “We had had all the conversations. She knew. But then when it all came out, and she told at the forensic interview, she said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. He made it seem like it wasn’t wrong,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, baby, he groomed you, and that’s how they do it.’ And she felt awful because she didn’t know.”
Other students shared similar accounts of Maldonado’s actions.
“There are reports ranging from hands up their shirts, down their pants, up their shorts, rubbing an erection on some … and the school claims no record, no fault, no liability,” Craig told Texas Scorecard.
A Personal Mission
“Where parents failed—myself included—is we trusted administrators to do their job, and so we didn’t follow up like we should have. We didn’t put things in writing like we should have,” she said.
Craig said she’s since connected with about 40 parents whose children were in Maldonado’s classes over the four years he taught at Magnolia Parkway Elementary.
“It’s become my personal mission to become these girls’ voice, because there are moms that want to speak up, but they’re scared to show their face.”
She said the number of confirmed victims now exceeds 20, and she expects more charges will be filed against Maldonado.
Craig noted that even after Maldonado was put on paid leave and under criminal investigation, he was still allowed on campus to pick up his two children who attended Magnolia Parkway.
When moms complained that seeing Maldonado was scaring their daughters, Assistant Principal Cody Blair reportedly told them to pick up their kids at a later time or at the back of the building.
Craig and her husband have filed a grievance with Magnolia ISD alleging the cumulative reports about Maldonado’s behavior were minimized by school administrators, allowing the teacher to stay in the classroom and victimize more students.
Multiple Administrators Knew
In addition to their own and the two prior complaints in 2022 and 2023, Craig said she’s aware of at least three other informal complaints against Maldonado that were made directly to Harless, Blair, and Assistant Principal and Campus Behavior Coordinator Christine Matula.
Craig said she finds it hard to believe there weren’t others, given the length of the victim list.
“These were not isolated events. These were repeated warnings,” the Craigs state in their grievance. “Had these reports been documented, connected, escalated, and acted on properly, our daughter and other children may have been protected.”
If the district had addressed their concerns, the matter could have ended there, the grievance states:
Instead, our concerns were minimized, important questions were left unanswered, and the District continued to defend its prior actions rather than fully examining what went wrong. That response has only strengthened our determination to keep pursuing the truth and accountability. We will not be silenced. We will not stop asking questions. We will not go away simply because this process is difficult or uncomfortable. We will continue until the District fully reviews the evidence, acknowledges its failures, and takes meaningful action to protect students and prevent this from happening again.
Magnolia ISD denied the Craigs’ allegations of wrongdoing during Level 1 and Level 2 grievance proceedings. The grievance is now at a Level 3 appeal, which the school board must hear within 60 calendar days of the Level 2 decision issued on July 13.
The next regular Magnolia ISD school board meetings are scheduled for August 13 and September 14.
A Magnolia ISD spokeswoman told Texas Scorecard the district has not set a date for the Level 3 grievance hearing but made no other comment about the Craig’s complaints.
The Craigs have requested that trustees hear the grievance in open session, but they expect the board will keep it closed to the public.
“I’m talking to anybody and everybody who’s willing to listen to me about it, because something has to change, because everything I’m seeing in the Texas law is reactive to situations like this,” said Craig. “There is nothing that is proactive.”
Maldonado previously taught in Aldine ISD and has held a Texas teaching certificate since 2016.
Families whose children have had contact with Maldonado are encouraged to call the Montgomery County Precinct 5 Constables Office at 281-259-6493.
In the past few years, hundreds of Texas school employees have been accused of sex crimes involving students and other children, and thousands have been reported to the TEA for sexual misconduct.
The TEA’s Educator Misconduct Reporting Dashboard shows that the agency is currently investigating more than 2,500 sexual misconduct complaints.
