(Texas Scorecard) – A mom whose daughter was sexually groomed by a teacher at Great Lakes Academy filed a civil lawsuit against the Plano private school for negligently allowing its employee to abuse the girl.

The victim’s mom, Brittany Halley, is also suing the teacher—who has confessed to preying on his then 15-year-old student—and the school’s principal.

The lawsuit alleges Great Lakes Academy Principal Matthew Jason Campbell knew that teacher Jacob Allred “had made sexual advances on students before and failed to terminate Allred for such predatory behaviors.”

Allred, now 34, was arrested in January 2024 and charged with child grooming. He was sentenced last month to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to three other felony sex crimes against the girl: two counts of sexual performance of a child and one count of improper relationship between educator and student.

The victim’s mother sued the school and its employees on September 29. A second alleged victim has since joined the lawsuit.

Allred taught for at least four years at Great Lakes Academy in Plano, also known as G.R.E.A.T. KIDS W/ADHD, which specializes in students with learning disabilities.

The victim was enrolled in GLA from August through December 2023 due to the girl’s ADHD. Allred was her 9th-grade teacher.

In the fall of 2023, Allred told the girl he had “romantic feelings” for her. He then began sending her sexually explicit messages via the Discord app and asked multiple times if she would “date” him. He also initiated physical contact with the girl, including “touching her under her desk, rubbing her over her clothes, and touching her inner thighs and buttocks.”

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Allred was then 32 years old; his victim was 15.

A second victim, identified in an amended petition filed October 3 as plaintiff Jane Doe, began attending Great Lakes Academy in 4th grade. Allred was her teacher from 2021 through 2024.

The lawsuit alleges that Allred started messaging Doe in November 2021 using Google Classroom private messages. The conversations then moved to Discord and became overtly sexual. According to the petition, Allred also began making “inappropriate physical contact with Doe” and even went to her place of employment.

“This course of grooming, sexual exploitation, and inappropriate physical contact persisted until Allred’s arrest in January 2024,” the lawsuit states.

That’s when Halley’s daughter disclosed Allred’s conduct to her mom, who immediately reported it to the Plano Police Department.

Police confirmed Allred’s inappropriate messages with the girl and discovered he had been in contact with other students on Discord, suggesting potential additional victims.

The lawsuit also alleges that Principal Campbell knew before August 2023 that Allred had attempted to groom other children under his care but failed to report the misconduct as required by state law—which itself is a crime.

Campbell also failed to remove Allred from his teaching duties, leaving Allred in a position of access to students and allowing his predatory behavior to remain unchecked.

Despite “repeated notice” that Allred was grooming and sexually exploiting students, the lawsuit claims that Campbell and Great Lakes Academy failed to take protective action, failed to remove Allred from contact with students, failed to report the abuse to law enforcement or child protective authorities, and failed to notify the victims’ parents.

“Instead, Defendants chose to remain silent and protect GLA’s reputation over the welfare of Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit states.

Following Allred’s sentencing in September, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis noted, “Prosecutors showed that Allred had previously been disciplined by the school for being alone with a female student in a classroom—a violation of school policy that foreshadowed his later crimes.”

The civil lawsuit was filed in the state’s 471st District Court in Collin County.

At least one other private school and eight government school districts are also facing lawsuits over students who were sexually abused by school employees—teachers, coaches, bus drivers—under the noses of administrators. In most of these cases, the school employees have been criminally charged.

In just the past few years, hundreds of Texas educators have been accused of sex crimes involving students and other children. Thousands have been reported to the Texas Education Agency for educator sexual misconduct.