A Central Texas teacher will spend just a few days in jail after pleading guilty to having sex with two boys she knew were under the age of legal consent.
Shelby Dawn Lashombe, 25, was sentenced to six years of deferred adjudication probation and a $1,000 fine, according to a report by KWTX. The judge also ordered Lashombe to spend four weekends in jail and work 60 days on a county prisoner detail.
Judge Thomas West of 19th District Court approved a plea agreement presented by Assistant District Attorney Will Hix during a sentencing hearing on September 25.
West reportedly said he would have sentenced Lashombe to more jail time if not for the testimony of one of the assaulted boy’s father and Lashombe’s therapist.
Lashombe was a high school teacher and coach in the Valley Mills Independent School District near Waco when she was arrested in September 2025 on multiple sex crime charges, but she resigned soon after.
The boys she admitted having sex with were 16-year-old high school students in two other districts, West ISD and Axtell ISD. The legal age of consent in Texas is 17, making Lashombe’s intercourse with the boys statutorily nonconsensual.
Lashombe worked for West ISD in 2023-24, then moved to Midway ISD in 2024-25, and joined Valley Mills ISD in the 2025-26 school year.
She pleaded guilty in April to two counts of improper relationship between educator and student, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison. The offense does not require sex offender registration.
As part of her plea deal, the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed two sexual assault of a child charges and recommended Lashombe spend no time in jail.
KWTX’s Tommy Witherspoon reported that the courtroom was full of people supporting Lashombe during the sentencing hearing.
The father told the judge his son is in counseling but was not traumatized by the abuse and is doing well in school. The father said he does not consider Lashombe a sexual predator and did not want her to go to jail or have a criminal record. If Lashombe completes the terms of her probation, the charges will be dismissed.
Therapist Gabrielle White said Lashombe had matured since her arrest a year ago and would continue counseling while on probation. White also claimed Lashombe had developed symptoms of PTSD from spending eight hours in jail following her arrest.
Lashombe’s attorney Cody Cleveland argued that Lashombe had “no power as a teacher” over the boys because they attended different schools.
“She is ready to move on with her life,” added Cleveland. “She is happy with the fact that she will not be a convicted felon and, by law, she does not have to register as a sex offender.”
ADA Hix called the case “unique” and said his office “listened to the victim and the victim’s family, respected their wishes, and worked to achieve the outcome they believed was right for them.”
But not all the victims’ family members agreed.
The ex-wife of the man who testified in Lashombe’s favor gave a very different account of their son’s state of mind, although Judge West didn’t hear her victim impact statement until after accepting the plea deal and adjourning the hearing.
After the hearing reconvened, the mother told the judge her son is not the same as before. She said he had withdrawn from family, stopped attending mass, and wanted to change schools.
According to KWTX, the mother said Lashombe had betrayed the trust placed in her as an educator and stole her son’s innocence with her “calculated and predatory actions.”
Lashombe received a Texas teaching certificate for math in 2023. West ISD reported Lashombe in February 2024 for an improper relationship with a student or minor, but the Texas Education Agency did not open a formal investigation. She permanently surrendered her certification in January 2026 and was added to the state’s Do Not Hire Registry as not eligible for hire in a public school.
Judge West, a Republican, was first elected in 2020 and re-elected in 2024 with 68 percent of the vote. He ran on a platform of reducing the backlog of cases in the court and being “an impartial judge who strictly interprets the law and remains tough on crime to keep our families safe.”
West previously worked as a McLennan County criminal prosecutor, then as a criminal defense attorney for a Waco law firm. He also served as the municipal court prosecutor for the city of Lorena.
Over 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.
TEA data shows the agency is currently investigating more than 3,000 sexual misconduct complaints and opening an average of 250 new cases each month, while overall misconduct reports tripled in 2026 compared to 2025.
Valley Central recently reported that over the past decade in Hidalgo County, 17 educators admitted to inappropriate sexual relationships with students but just four spent any time in prison.
