A Lorena principal facing a federal lawsuit for failing to protect pre-K students from a teacher’s sexual abuse may also have her Texas educator certification revoked for being “unworthy” to supervise children.
The Texas Education Agency submitted a petition to the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) asserting that Lorena Primary School Principal April Jewell’s conduct surrounding the sex abuse scandal “indicates that she is a person unworthy to instruct or supervise the youth of this state.”
That’s a violation of the Texas Educators’ Code of Ethics—standards of conduct for all certified school teachers and administrators that are enforceable by the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC). Sanctions can include restriction, reprimand, suspension, or revocation of a certificate, or a surrender in lieu of disciplinary action.
KWTX reported on the TEA petition last week, following a closed SOAH meeting held February 6 to depose witnesses in the case.
The petition, reportedly filed in November 2025, is not a public document. A TEA spokesman told Texas Scorecard the petition is currently sealed and was not released to KWTX by the agency, which cannot comment on pending litigation.
The document reportedly lays out the timeline of allegations against Jewell.
Jewell is a defendant in a civil suit, along with the Lorena Independent School District, brought in 2023 by parents of a then-5-year-old girl who was molested for months in her classroom by a long-term substitute teacher, Nicolas Crenshaw, back in the 2020-21 school year.
Parents and staff allege Jewell turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse by an employee under her supervision, ignoring multiple warnings about the teacher’s inappropriate behavior with three girls in the class.
Crenshaw confessed to sexually assaulting and continuously sexually abusing two of the girls, including a 4-year-old, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
According to KWTX, the TEA’s petition accuses Jewell of “child neglect” for allegedly failing to report and/or hindering others from reporting child abuse, and states that Jewell denied many of the claims when questioned by a TEA investigator in November 2024.
Jewell also fought the civil lawsuit, claiming “qualified immunity” from any liability for her employee’s actions.
In August 2025, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Jewell’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the basis of immunity. Discovery in the case has now begun, and a trial is set for April 2027.
The TEA’s charges against Jewell will be considered by the SOAH during a hearing beginning on April 13, presided over by administrative law judge Ross Henderson. The TEA will be represented by state attorney Jonathan Crabtree; Jewell will be represented by education law attorneys Dennis Eichelbaum and Andrea Mooney. The judge will then issue a proposal for a decision.
A final determination on Jewell’s certificate status rests with SBEC, which is “solely responsible for enforcing the Educators’ Code of Ethics for purposes related to certification disciplinary proceedings.” SBEC proceedings are generally open to the public.
SBEC’s stated goals in educator disciplinary matters are:
(1) to protect the safety and welfare of Texas schoolchildren and school personnel;
(2) to ensure educators and applicants are morally fit and worthy to instruct or to supervise the youth of the state; and
(3) to fairly and efficiently resolve educator disciplinary proceedings at the least expense possible to the parties and the state.
According to the Code of Ethics, conduct that evidences a lack of good moral character is “not necessarily limited” to job-related crimes or acts of moral turpitude.
In response to reports about the TEA petition, Lorena ISD trustees released a statement last week indicating that the board was “aware of the investigation process underway by the State Office of Administrative Hearings” but had received “no new information” regarding the TEA’s actions against Jewell.
Superintendent Joe Kucera and Deputy Superintendent Rusty Grimm recently announced they are retiring this year, although both have said their decisions are unrelated to the sex abuse scandal and lawsuit that happened on their watch and remain unresolved.
Lorena parents have been calling for years for the resignation of Jewell—as well as Kucera and school board trustees for failing to hold anyone in the district accountable for the sex crimes committed against their most vulnerable students.
At least a dozen Texas school districts are targets of civil lawsuits over sexual abuse of students.
Several school administrators are also facing criminal charges and/or are under investigation by the TEA for potentially enabling or hushing up educator misconduct, including in Millsap, Winnsboro, and Collinsville ISDs.
Just last week, Texas appointed its first Inspector General for Educator Misconduct, Levi Fuller, who said his office would be investigating both criminal offenses and Code of Ethics violations as they do whatever it takes to “fix the problem.”
