(Texas Scorecard) – New documents filed in a lawsuit against Millsap Independent School District and four now-former employees reveal disturbing details about teachers abusing special needs students and administrators attempting to cover up the child abuse.
The federal lawsuit was brought in June by parents of three Millsap Elementary students who were victims of educators’ alleged physical and verbal abuse.
An updated complaint was filed July 22, just days after a grand jury indicted former Millsap ISD Superintendent Mari Edith “Edie” Martin for failing to report the abuse.
Millsap moms Carissa Cornelius, Victoria Garcia, and Whitney Price filed the lawsuit against the district and its employees after learning the full extent of educators’ abusive actions toward their special needs children and administrators’ efforts to conceal the behavior.
Probable cause affidavits for the arrests of Martin and two other defendants in the lawsuit—special education teacher Jennifer Cain Dale and paraprofessional Paxton Kendal Bean—are included in the amended complaint.
The affidavits document “a horrifying, longstanding, and escalating pattern of abuse of children at Millsap Elementary that began around December of 2024.”
According to the affidavits, abusive actions by Dale and Bean against the young students included:
—locking children in unlit closets for extended periods of time, where they screamed for help and pleaded to be released;
—assaulting children with their hands and objects and using other forceful measures; and
—verbal assaults calling the children names, mocking their disabilities, and commenting about their genitals.
In one documented incident, one plaintiff’s child accused Bean of punching him in the face while confining him in a “calm down” room, which resulted in the boy being taken to the school nurse with a “gushing nosebleed.”
“The parents of these children thought they were doing the best for their children,” the lawsuit states. “Never would they expect during all this time their children would be subject to anything other than a thoughtful learning environment. However, in reality, the learning ‘safe space’ turned out to be a nightmare where their kids were assaulted and dehumanized.”
The abuse and subsequent coverup came to light when whistleblower video of the teachers abusing a 10-year-old autistic student was widely shared on social media.
All four individual defendants in the lawsuit eventually lost their jobs over the scandal.
Martin, Dale, and Bean were arrested in March for their roles in the abuse and coverup.
At the time of her arrest, Martin was charged with failure to report child abuse with intent to conceal, a state jail felony.
On July 17, a Parker County grand jury indicted Martin on a lesser charge of failure to report, a Class A misdemeanor.
A grand jury separately indicted Bean for felony injury to a child—an 8-year-old student whose parent is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Dale was charged with official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.
Roxie Ann Carter is also a defendant in the parents’ lawsuit. Carter was the principal of Millsap Elementary when the abuse occurred and is also Bean’s mother, but she has not been charged.
School board trustees allowed Martin and Carter to resign in the wake of the scandal. Dale and Bean were suspended when the allegations arose and no longer work for the district.
Investigations conducted by Millsap ISD’s law firm and the Parker County Sheriff’s Office found that on February 19, an assistant in the plaintiffs’ children’s classroom reported to then-Superintendent Martin what she had observed and provided video showing Dale and Bean abusing a student.
According to the parents’ lawsuit, Martin assured the whistleblower and two other classroom assistants that “the matter was being properly investigated” and claimed she had reported the incidents to the Texas Education Agency, Child Protective Services, and the Parker County Sheriff’s Office.
PCSO investigators found those claims to be false, according to the probable cause affidavit for Martin’s arrest.
In fact, Martin acknowledged that her immediate response was to notify Millsap ISD’s law firm and school board trustees—not CPS or law enforcement. Attorney Gema Padgett conducted an investigation on behalf of the district that was completed on March 5.
On February 28, the whistleblower asked Martin for an update on the investigation. She recorded Martin instructing her to delete videos of the abuse from her phone because “they are educator records.”
“All appropriate steps will be taken,” Martin told the whistleblower. “We take care of kids.”
That same day, Martin finally reported Dale to the TEA. She didn’t report Bean until March 3.
Previously, superintendents were required to report suspected child abuse to CPS within 48 hours and to the TEA within seven business days. A new law that took effect June 20 requires reporting to CPS within 24 hours and to the TEA within 48 hours of becoming aware of alleged abuse.
Dale and Bean were temporarily suspended while the district’s investigation was pending.
The complaint notes that Principal Carter then wrote a letter of recommendation for her daughter, Bean, helping her obtain a job as an educator in another school district.
“She [Bean] began employment while she was actively being investigated for child abuse,” the complaint states.
Cornelius, whose son was shown in the viral video, was never notified by school officials of the abuse allegations. Instead, she learned about the abuse from the whistleblower who recorded the video.
After confronting Martin and being told only that “we are investigating the matter,” on March 4, Cornelius took the information to the Parker County Sheriff’s Office, which immediately opened an investigation.
Investigators confirmed that district officials never reported the allegations to their office and that Martin and Carter never contacted the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (CPS).
According to the PCSO, Martin simply inquired how she might report a matter being investigated, but said she did not believe anything criminal had taken place.
In the course of their investigation into the recorded abuse of Cornelius’ son, sheriff’s officers discovered that two other special needs students in the classroom staffed by Dale and Bean were also subjected to “systemic” physical and verbal abuse by the educators.
The parents’ lawsuit alleges that Millsap ISD trustees were aware of disabled children being abused in the classroom before the video became public but failed to take corrective action against Dale or Bean.
“To be clear, the leadership of Millsap ISD and the Board never stepped in to put an end to the conduct, and by way of adoption, encouraged the behavior as it continued following their discovery,” the complaint states.
The complaint alleges the district only took action in response to public outrage after video of the abuse was exposed on social media.
Parents of the abused children are seeking compensation for medical expenses as well as punitive damages.
“The damage done to these young children is disgraceful, and even more so given their vulnerability,” their lawsuit states. “Children who look to their educators for guidance, as trustworthy mentors to show them how the world works and what is acceptable behavior, and what is not; forever drilled into their young minds that their teachers’ conduct is not only normal but expected.”
The parents and the Millsap community also want accountability and an end to the district’s “culture of silence and intimidation,” to ensure such abuses never happen again.
The complaint states that changes must be made, “Not only for the parties to this lawsuit, but for every parent that entrusts their child’s care to educators outside of their homes.”