Private School Sexual Abuse Claims in Texas
When a teacher, coach, or staff member sexually abuses a student, the school that hired that person and kept them on campus may share responsibility for what happened. Texas private schools carry no governmental immunity. A family bringing a claim against one does not have to work around the protections that apply to a school district, and does not have to satisfy Title IX’s demanding notice standard. What the family must show is ordinary negligence: that the school failed to use reasonable care in hiring, supervising, or retaining the person who caused the harm.
If your child was abused at a Texas private school, you may have a civil claim against the school itself in addition to any criminal case against the abuser. These are two separate proceedings with different burdens of proof, and the civil case does not have to wait for the criminal one to finish.
Not sure which kind of school your child attends?
It matters more than almost anything else in these cases, and families get it wrong all the time. A private school charges tuition and sits outside the public system — the rules on this page apply. An open-enrollment charter school, such as IDEA, KIPP Texas, Harmony, Uplift or ILTexas, is tuition-free and is a public school under Texas law, even though it operates independently of any school district. Charter school claims follow the public school rules described below, not the ones on this page.
The short test: if the school charges tuition, start here. If it is tuition-free, start with our guide to suing a public school for sexual abuse in Texas, which covers districts and charter schools together.
Public School or Private School: Why the Distinction Matters
This area of Texas law changed recently, and much of what is written online about it is out of date.
Before September 1, 2025, Texas public school districts were shielded by governmental immunity in nearly all abuse cases. That pushed families toward Title IX, where courts require proof that a school official with authority to fix the problem had actual knowledge of the abuse and responded with deliberate indifference — a demanding standard that defeated many claims.
House Bill 4623 changed that. Effective September 1, 2025, it created Chapter 118 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Under Section 118.002, a public school that is grossly negligent or reckless, or engages in intentional misconduct, in hiring, supervising, or employing a professional school employee is liable for that employee’s act or omission against an enrolled student where the act is sexual misconduct or a failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect under Section 261.101 of the Texas Family Code. Section 118.006 waives the school’s governmental immunity to the extent of the liability the chapter creates, and bars professional school employees from asserting official immunity.
Two definitions matter. Under Section 118.001, a “public school” is an independent school district or an open-enrollment charter school, so charter schools are covered. “Sexual misconduct” is a defined term limited to sexual abuse and an enumerated list of Penal Code offenses rather than any inappropriate conduct.
Three limits matter just as much, and families are rarely told about them up front:
- Chapter 118 is not retroactive. It applies only to acts or omissions occurring on or after September 1, 2025. If the abuse happened before that date, a school district is still protected by the older immunity rules.
- Damages are capped. Section 118.003 awards a prevailing claimant actual damages up to $500,000 per claimant. The chapter provides for actual damages only.
- The fee provision runs both ways. Section 118.004 entitles “a party who prevails” to court costs and reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees. That includes the school district. A family that sues a public school under this chapter and loses can be ordered to pay the district’s fees.
Chapter 118 also requires that the employee who committed the act be named personally as a defendant alongside the school. None of these limits — the September 2025 cutoff, the cap, the two-way fee exposure, or the mandatory employee defendant — applies to a claim against a private school.
Public schools are reachable now in a way they were not before. But the two paths still look very different:
| Public School (Chapter 118) | Private School | |
| Governmental immunity | Waived for claims under Chapter 118 | None — private schools were never immune |
| What you must prove | Gross negligence, recklessness, or intentional misconduct | Ordinary negligence |
| Damages | Capped at $500,000 per claimant in actual damages | No cap of the kind Chapter 118 imposes |
| Conduct before Sept. 1, 2025 | Not covered — Chapter 118 is not retroactive | Covered — no comparable cutoff date |
| Attorney’s fees | Two-way — the prevailing party recovers, so a district that wins can seek fees from the family | No two-way fee-shifting statute |
| Who must be sued | The employee must be named personally as a defendant | The school alone may be sued |
| Title IX | Applies | Applies only if the school receives federal funding — most Texas private schools do not |
We handle both. If your child attended a public school or an open-enrollment charter school, our guide to suing a public school for sexual abuse in Texas walks through that path in detail.
Legal Claims Against a Private School
A private school sexual abuse case usually rests on one or more of the following claims. Each requires proof that the school owed your child a duty, failed to meet it, and that the failure caused the harm.
Negligent Hiring
A school may be liable if it failed to reasonably screen someone before putting them in contact with children. Background checks, reference calls, and questions about why an applicant left a prior school are the kinds of steps a jury will ask about. When a school skips them and hires someone with a history, the connection between the failure and the harm is direct.
Negligent Retention
Often the stronger claim. A school that learns of complaints, rumors, boundary violations, or a prior investigation — and keeps the employee in place anyway — is on notice. What the school knew and when it knew it is usually the central fight in these cases.
Negligent Supervision
This claim asks whether the school monitored its staff and its campus reasonably: one-on-one meetings behind closed doors, unsupervised trips, after-hours contact, private messaging with students. Policies that exist on paper but are not enforced tend to help the family’s case rather than the school’s.
General Negligence and Premises Claims
If a school knew of a specific risk and failed to take reasonable steps to address it, it may be liable under ordinary negligence principles.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
Where a school’s conduct goes beyond carelessness — concealing what it knew, pressuring a family into silence, retaliating against a student who reported — a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress may be available.
Foreseeability and Proximate Cause
Two concepts decide most negligence cases against schools.
Foreseeability asks whether a reasonable school should have anticipated the harm. A school does not have to have predicted the specific act; it has to have recognized the kind of risk it was creating. Prior complaints, a failed background check, an ignored report, or a known pattern of boundary-crossing all make harm foreseeable.
Proximate cause links the school’s failure to your child’s injury. In Texas, the injury must be a natural and probable result of what the school did or failed to do. Where a school would have discovered a history had it made a single phone call, that link is usually straightforward to draw.
How Long Do You Have to File?
Texas gives survivors of childhood sexual abuse a substantially longer civil filing window than most personal injury claims, and the deadline depends on the specific conduct, the survivor’s age at the time, and when the claim is brought. It is long — but it is not unlimited, and evidence gets harder to gather every year.
Run the dates before you assume anything has expired: the civil statute of limitations for sexual abuse in Texas, including a calculator that will estimate your deadline.
If your family previously signed a settlement or nondisclosure agreement with a school, that document may no longer bind you the way the school intended. Trey’s Law restricts contracts that silence sexual abuse survivors in Texas. Bring the agreement to us before you assume you cannot speak.
Warning Signs of Grooming in Schools
Abuse in a school setting is rarely sudden. It is usually preceded by grooming — a deliberate process of selecting a child, isolating them, building trust, introducing secrecy, and normalizing contact that escalates over time. Groomers frequently work on the family and the wider school community as well, so that the adult seems beyond suspicion if the child ever speaks up.
The patterns worth paying attention to:
- An adult who arranges one-on-one time with your child — extra help, rides, private meetings, trips.
- Gifts, money, or special treatment that singles your child out.
- Direct contact outside school hours: texting, social media, gaming platforms, private messaging.
- Secrets framed as a special friendship, or an adult who tells your child not to mention something.
- Physical contact that seems affectionate but escalates — lingering hugs, roughhousing, back rubs.
- Sexual talk, jokes, or explicit content introduced as though it were normal.
- A change in your child: withdrawal, secrecy about a phone, sleep or appetite changes, a new reluctance to attend school or an activity.
If something feels wrong, act on it. Under Chapter 261 of the Texas Family Code, any adult who believes a child is being abused is required to report it — and professionals who work with children face criminal exposure for failing to report child abuse. You do not need proof to make a report, and you do not need to be certain before calling us.
Texas Does Not Oversee Private Schools the Way It Oversees Districts
The Texas Education Agency does not license, accredit, or monitor private schools. Accreditation is voluntary. A private school sets its own hiring standards, its own background check policy, its own reporting procedures, and its own rules about staff contact with students — and no state agency reviews whether it follows them.
That independence is often part of the appeal for families. It is also why the civil justice system frequently ends up being the only mechanism that forces a private school to account for what it knew and what it did about it. One duty does apply regardless: Chapter 261 of the Texas Family Code makes every adult in Texas a mandatory reporter of suspected child abuse, whatever kind of school they work for.
We represent families in matters involving private schools throughout Texas, including the state’s largest:
| Texas Private School | City | Enrollment |
| The Village School | Houston | 1,750 |
| The Awty International School | Houston | 1,717 |
| St. John’s School | Houston | 1,493 |
| Trinity Christian Academy | Addison | 1,470 |
| Prestonwood Christian Academy | Plano | 1,444 |
| The Kinkaid School | Houston | 1,423 |
| Liberty Christian School | Argyle | 1,305 |
| Greenhill School | Addison | 1,292 |
| Midland Christian School | Midland | 1,238 |
| The John Cooper School | The Woodlands | 1,201 |
| Second Baptist School | Houston | 1,200 |
| The Episcopal School of Dallas | Dallas | 1,170 |
| Cornerstone Christian Schools | San Antonio | 1,149 |
| The Parish Episcopal School | Dallas | 1,130 |
| Jesuit College Preparatory School | Dallas | 1,108 |
| Fort Worth Country Day School | Fort Worth | 1,100 |
| San Antonio Christian School | San Antonio | 1,100 |
| The Hockaday School | Dallas | 1,098 |
| Bishop Lynch High School | Dallas | 1,052 |
| Trinity Valley School | Fort Worth | 1,020 |
| Strake Jesuit College Preparatory | Houston | 1,018 |
| Regents School of Austin | Austin | 1,011 |
| St. Mary’s Hall | San Antonio | 993 |
| Prince of Peace Christian School | Carrollton | 958 |
| Grace Community School | Tyler | 952 |
| All Saints Episcopal School | Fort Worth | 945 |
| Lutheran South Academy | Houston | 933 |
| St. Agnes Academy | Houston | 927 |
| St. Andrew’s Episcopal School | Austin | 890 |
| St. Mark’s School of Texas | Dallas | 884 |
| Episcopal High School | Bellaire | 824 |
| Ursuline Academy of Dallas | Dallas | 800 |
| The Oakridge School | Arlington | 800 |
| The Woodlands Christian Academy | The Woodlands | 750 |
| The Highlands School | Irving | 700 |
| The Covenant School | Dallas | 600 |
| Houston Christian High School | Houston | 500 |
| The Lamplighter School | Dallas | 450 |
| Cistercian Preparatory School | Irving | 350 |
| The Winston School | Dallas | 200 |
| The Cambridge School of Dallas | Dallas | 150 |
Inclusion in this list is not a statement that any school has been the subject of a claim. We also handle school abuse matters by region, including Dallas school abuse claims and Fort Bend school abuse claims, along with daycare abuse claims.
How Varghese Summersett Can Help
Our firm handles both sides of what a family faces after abuse at school: the criminal case moving through the courts, and the civil claim against the institution that allowed it. Very few Texas firms do both.
Guiding you through the criminal investigation
We explain how the investigation works, what to expect from detectives and prosecutors, and where your family’s interests sit in a process that is not built around you. Our team includes former prosecutors, and we know how these cases are charged and tried.
Connecting you with experienced counselors
Healing matters as much as the case. We help connect families with counselors who work specifically with survivors of abuse.
Documenting what happened
We help gather and preserve the record: medical and counseling records, communications with the school, personnel and complaint files, and the account of what your family reported and when.
Filing a demand and lawsuit
Once the evidence supports it, we present a formal demand to the school and its insurers. If they will not resolve it fairly, we file suit and try the case. We are trial lawyers, and schools and their carriers know which firms will actually go to a jury.
Holding the school accountable
Beyond compensation, these cases force disclosure — of what the school knew, who it told, and what it did. That record is often what finally changes a school’s policies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a private school for sexual abuse in Texas?
Yes. Private schools in Texas do not have governmental immunity. If the school was negligent in hiring, supervising, or retaining the person who abused your child, it can be held liable in a civil lawsuit. The claim is separate from any criminal case against the abuser.
Is it easier to sue a private school than a public school?
In most cases, yes, and for more reasons than the burden of proof. A private school claim requires only ordinary negligence. A claim against a public school under Chapter 118 requires gross negligence, recklessness, or intentional misconduct; caps actual damages at $500,000 per claimant; applies only to conduct on or after September 1, 2025; requires the employee to be named personally as a defendant; and carries two-way fee exposure, meaning a district that wins can seek its attorney’s fees from the family. None of that applies to a private school.
How long do I have to file a claim?
Texas allows survivors of childhood sexual abuse far more time than an ordinary injury claim, but the deadline depends on the specific conduct and the survivor’s age at the time. Separately, a claim against a public school under Chapter 118 reaches only acts or omissions occurring on or after September 1, 2025. Do not assume your time has run. Use our statute of limitations calculator or call us and we will run the dates with you.
Will my child have to testify?
Not necessarily, and not usually in the way families fear. Most civil cases resolve before trial. When testimony is required, there are protections available, and we prepare children and families carefully. This is one of the first things we discuss with you.
What is a private school sexual abuse case worth?
It depends on what happened, the lasting harm, what the school knew, and the insurance available. Because private school claims are not subject to the Chapter 118 cap, the range is considerably wider than in public school cases. We will give you an honest assessment once we have reviewed the facts — not a number designed to sign you up.
What does it cost to hire you?
We handle these civil claims on a contingency fee. There is no fee unless we recover for your family, and the consultation is free and confidential.
We signed an NDA with the school. Are we stuck?
Possibly not. Trey’s Law limits the enforceability of agreements that silence sexual abuse survivors in Texas. Bring the agreement to us and we will review it before you assume you cannot speak.
Talk to a Texas Private School Sexual Abuse Lawyer
If your child was abused at a private school, you are weighing something painful against an institution your family trusted. You do not have to work out the legal side alone, and nothing you tell us goes further.
Call (817) 203-2220 or contact us for a free and confidential consultation. We’ll reach out as soon as possible.
