{"id":403473,"date":"2026-08-11T11:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T11:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/403473\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T11:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T11:48:23","slug":"mesquite-teacher-gets-30-years-for-child-sex-abuse-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/403473\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesquite Teacher Gets 30 Years for Child Sex Abuse Material"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teacher who worked in the Mesquite Independent School District was sentenced to 30 years in state prison after pleading guilty to possessing child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n

Chad Michael Beery, 42, was arrested in November 2025<\/a> and charged with possessing child pornography<\/a> (10-50 images), a first-degree felony, and possessing visual material depicting sexual assault, a third-degree felony.<\/p>\n

On August 6, Beery entered a guilty plea<\/a> to the more serious charge, which involved images of children subjected to sexual conduct.<\/p>\n

Judge Brett Hall of the 382nd District Court in Rockwall County then ordered Beery to serve 30 years in a Texas prison.<\/p>\n

At the time of his arrest, Beery was an Academy Option teacher at Mesquite Academy<\/a>, an \u201cuntraditional\u201d school for students in grades 8 through 12.<\/p>\n

A district spokeswoman told Texas Scorecard in November that Mesquite ISD was unaware of any allegations prior to hiring Beery and that he would not be returning.<\/p>\n

Beery had taught in Mesquite ISD since 2018, the same year he received a certificate<\/a> to teach math and special education.<\/p>\n

The State Board for Educator Certification indefinitely suspended<\/a> Beery\u2019s certification in February and put him on \u201cnot eligible for hire<\/a>\u201d status.<\/p>\n

A state law<\/a> passed last year requires SBEC to temporarily suspend<\/a> teaching credentials of educators arrested for certain felonies and add them to the Do Not Hire Registry<\/a>, keeping them out of classrooms while the cases against them are prosecuted.<\/p>\n

In just the past few years, hundreds of Texas educators have been\u00a0accused of sex crimes<\/a>\u00a0involving students and other minors\u2014including possessing, producing, and distributing child sex abuse material.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\n Erin Anderson is a Senior Journalist for Texas Scorecard, reporting on state and local issues, events, and government actions that impact people in communities throughout Texas and the DFW Metroplex. A native Texan, Erin grew up in the Houston area and now lives in Collin County. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teacher who worked in the Mesquite Independent School District was sentenced to 30 years in state prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,127763,1563],"class_list":["post-403473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bad-apples","tag-public-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}