{"id":423243,"date":"2026-09-01T21:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/423243\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T21:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:30:08","slug":"willis-isd-employee-charged-with-soliciting-student-for-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/423243\/","title":{"rendered":"Willis ISD Employee Charged With Soliciting Student for Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Willis Independent School District employee was fired following his arrest for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old student.<\/p>\n

Austin Gwaltney, 27, was arrested Monday and charged with online solicitation of a minor<\/a>, a third-degree felony.<\/p>\n

Gwaltney was a technology support helper who provided technical assistance to campuses throughout the district, according to a message<\/a> from the Willis ISD administration alerting families to his arrest.<\/p>\n

Willis ISD administrators fired Gwaltney when they learned of his arrest on August 31. He had worked for the district since January 30, 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take matters involving the safety of children seriously,\u201d the district stated, adding that school officials are cooperating fully with local law enforcement.<\/p>\n

The Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office Special Victims Unit made the arrest after investigating a reported inappropriate relationship between Gwaltney and a 14-year-old former Willis ISD student.<\/p>\n

MCSO stated<\/a> that SVU detectives determined Gwaltney and the minor had exchanged \u201cinappropriate photographs.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday evening, investigators executed a search warrant and an arrest warrant at Gwaltney\u2019s residence.<\/p>\n

Gwaltney was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on August 31. Bond was set at $125,000.<\/p>\n

The investigation is ongoing and is being conducted jointly by the Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office Special Victims Unit and the Montgomery County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information or who may have been targeted by Gwaltney is encouraged to contact the Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office at 936-760-5800.<\/p>\n

Gwaltney is the third Texas school employee charged with online solicitation of a minor in less than a week. On Friday, Richardson ISD teacher Michael Fouse<\/a> and Andrews ISD teacher Christopher Cleveland<\/a> were both arrested on the same charge.<\/p>\n

In the past few years, hundreds of Texas school employees have been accused of sex crimes<\/a> involving students and other children, and thousands have been reported to the Texas Education Agency for sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

The TEA\u2019s\u00a0Educator Misconduct Reporting Dashboard<\/a>\u00a0shows the agency is currently investigating more than 2,700 sexual misconduct complaints and opening an average of 250 new cases each month.<\/p>\n

TEA is also receiving an average of 2,200 fingerprint-based criminal history alerts from law enforcement each month\u2014more than 24,000 so far this fiscal year.<\/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 Willis Independent School District employee was fired following his arrest for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old student.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,127763,1563],"class_list":["post-423243","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\/423243","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=423243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}