UPDATED June 25 with information from Coach Lancaster’s arrest affidavit.
A Texas high school coach was charged with covering up a fellow coach’s illegal sex with a student, and authorities say more arrests are expected in the case.
Jared Alan Lancaster, a teacher and assistant baseball coach in Winnsboro Independent School District, was arrested Monday and charged with knowingly failing to make a required child abuse report.
Educators are mandatory reporters of child abuse. Failure to report is a Class A misdemeanor unless it’s proven that the suspect intended to conceal the abuse, in which case the crime is a state jail felony.
Earlier this month another Winnsboro High School teacher and coach, Nicholas Gabriel, was arrested for having sex with a student at the school.
Winnsboro ISD is a four-school district in northeastern Texas with about 1,500 students and 120 teachers.
The Wood County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement on Monday saying its investigation into sex abuse and cover-ups in Winnsboro ISD is “ongoing.”
According to the statement, “it is a criminal offense to be aware of a relationship between a staff member of the school and a student and not report that relationship to the proper agency.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact either the Wood County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division or the Texas Rangers.
“Again, this case is ongoing and more arrests are expected,” the WCSO statement concluded.
According to a report by KETK, an arrest affidavit for Lancaster showed that he and Gabriel—referred to as Coach Gabe—exchanged frequent text messages about their use of illegal drugs and sexual relations between other school staff.
“Coach Gabe and Coach Lancaster hung out together on a routine basis and both had open discussions on a regular basis and with both expressing a voluntary desire to help conceal, and assist one another in these aforementioned ongoing activities,” the affidavit read.
Based off of the associated past history and type relationship between Coach Gabe and Coach Lancaster, and the mentioned communications between the two, it is apparent that Coach Lancaster not only concealed/hid the knowledge of the sexual relations between Teacher/Coach Gabe and the WHS student, Coach Lancaster also attempted to forewarn and assist Teacher/Coach Gabe cover up his illegal relationship when it was mentioned on social media.
Also on Monday, Winnsboro ISD school board trustees considered firing the district’s Police Chief Heath Guy, who was reportedly placed on administrative leave earlier this month for failing to notify the superintendent about the Texas Rangers investigation of Gabriel.
“Translation: Leadership wanted a PR heads-up, while the police chief followed [law enforcement] protocol?” parent advocacy group Texas Education 911 posted to social media. “This raises red flags about Winnsboro ISD’s priorities and a problem with having a police force reporting to a superintendent.”
Coach Lancaster was booked into the Wood County Jail on June 23 and released the next day on a $10,000 bond.
State records show Lancaster does not hold a Texas teaching certificate.
In just the past few years, hundreds of Texas school employees have been accused of sex crimes involving students.
A Texas Education 911 analysis of educator misconduct reports filed from September 2021 through July 2024 found that thousands of teachers had been reported to the Texas Education Agency for sexual misconduct.
Yet just 18 administrators were turned in for failure to report misconduct to the TEA (only one was disciplined), and only 143 complaints were filed against educators who failed to report abuse to an “appropriate agency” as required by law.
This year, at least two school administrators have been charged with intentional failure to report teachers’ abuse of students: Rick Adams, a principal at Newman International Academy in Arlington, and now-former Millsap ISD Superintendent Edie Martin.
