Texas teacher guilty of sexting 15-year-old student

A 54-year-old Texas teacher will serve eight years of probation and lose her teaching license after sending nude photos to a 15-year-old student.

Christine Paige Cockrell, who taught eighth grade at Gatesville Junior High near Waco, was arrested in May 2024, Texas Scorecard reported.

She was indicted in February on two counts of an improper relationship between an educator and a student. Each offense carried a possible sentence of two to 20 years in prison, but Cockrell accepted a plea deal that avoided jail time.

According to police documents, Cockrell sent multiple explicit images to two students in 2023 and asked them to send nude photos in return, Fox 44 reported. No physical contact was alleged.

Under the agreement, Cockrell will permanently surrender her teaching certificate but will not be required to register as a sex offender. Texas law does not require registration in cases of improper relationships between educators and students when no physical contact occurs.

In cases that involve sexual assault, teachers are typically required to register as sex offenders.

Texas Scorecard maintains an interactive map of the thousands of educator sexual misconduct complaints lodged in the state since 2021.