A lawsuit alleges that a teacher at The Hockaday School who was fired after his arrest on federal child pornography charges this summer previously broke the arm of a 3-year-old student on the playground in 2018, then retaliated against her after she told her mother what had happened.
The lawsuit, filed in Dallas County on Thursday, also alleges administrators at the elite Dallas prep school for girls created a “toxic culture” by repeatedly dismissing the mother’s complaints about the teacher, 29-year-old Jason Baldwin. The lawsuit also alleges Baldwin mentally and emotionally abused the girl as he continued to instruct her for nearly a year after the incident.
Baldwin was fired in August after admitting to federal investigators that he purchased videos of underage boys engaging in sex acts from a convicted sex offender in Philadelphia. According to an FBI arrest warrant affidavit, he bought the videos online using a PayPal account that listed Hockaday’s northwest Dallas mailing address.
Hockaday said in a written statement that the school “takes very seriously any allegation of harm to a child” but that the lawsuit “contains misstatements and accusations that have already been investigated and found unsubstantiated, by government agencies and in Hockaday’s investigation processes.”
The school said the allegations conflate the unrelated criminal charges against Baldwin with the allegations regarding the 3-year-old and that none of the allegations regarding child pornography involve any current or former Hockaday students.
“The safety of our children remains Hockaday’s most fundamental duty and value. Since learning of the prosecution of Jason Baldwin, Hockaday has undertaken a comprehensive audit, conducted by external experts, of all relevant policies and practices, from hiring protocols to the security of its facilities. Hockaday will continue to take every step at its disposal to protect the safety and wellbeing of its students.”
Court records do not list a civil attorney for Baldwin, and his public defender in the pending criminal case didn’t return a call or email Monday. A phone number listed for Baldwin in court records didn’t appear to be in service Monday.
The child at the center of the lawsuit — referred to in documents as S.W. — is the daughter of Tracy Walder, who joined the Hockaday faculty in 2010 after retiring from a career with the CIA and the FBI, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says that on or about Aug. 21, 2018, Baldwin was pushing the 3-year-old student, a preschooler in Baldwin’s class, on a playground swing. Even after the girl told him to stop, Baldwin pushed her harder and higher on the swing until she fell, landing on her left arm. She was left with “multiple, significant bone fractures,” according to the lawsuit.
Hockaday staff told Walder her daughter had fallen off the swing, but X-rays revealed more serious injuries, according to the lawsuit.
According to the suit, Walder complained about the incident to Hockaday’s chief financial officer, who the document says dismissed her concerns, denied any responsibility by the school, praised Baldwin and said no action would be taken. Indeed, the suit says, Baldwin was not disciplined and Walder was ordered not to speak of the incident.
In the months that followed, S.W. remained in Baldwin’s class where he mentally and emotionally abused her in retaliation for her allegations, the lawsuit says. During this time, it states, she often cried at home, threw tantrums and made comments like “school is not fair” and “Mr. Jason does not like me.”
Throughout the school year, the lawsuit says, Walder saw her daughter’s mental and emotional state worsen. The girl was prone to throwing tantrums, crying after coming home from school, and biting her nails until her fingers bled, among other nervous tics, it states. These issues weren’t as bad on days when she had no interaction with Baldwin, the document says.
At a parent-student breakfast at the Hockaday in September 2018, the lawsuit says, Walder overheard Baldwin say to S.W. that the girl had “white people problems” after she complained that she didn’t have a spoon for her yogurt.
Walder complained about the incident to Angel Duncan, who was head of the school’s Child Development Center, the lawsuit says. Duncan dismissed Walder’s concerns, saying that she had no issues with Baldwin and that S.W. was simply adjusting to having a new teacher, it states.
After the school year ended in the spring of 2019, the lawsuit states, S.W. broke down as Walder was taking her to swimming lessons, telling her mother that Baldwin had locked her in the bathroom with the lights off during classes for “crying too much.”
Walder went to Duncan again, the lawsuit says. Duncan said she was “shocked to hear S.W.'s story” and said she would put a note in Baldwin’s file but took no substantive action, it says.
After her daughter’s bathroom allegation, the lawsuit states, Walder sought help from a professional counselor, who the document says diagnosed the girl’s experience as child abuse and helped Walder make a report to Child Protective Services. After CPS filed a report, it says, Hockaday performed no meaningful investigation and told the agency that it had no knowledge about the allegations.
Grant Gerleman, an attorney representing Walder, said police weren’t contacted regarding the CPS report or the other allegations the lawsuit describes. Dallas police confirmed they didn’t have a record of any incident report regarding Baldwin.
According to the lawsuit, the school also “gaslighted Ms. Walder by telling her that what her daughter said was not true and that ‘kids make things up all the time.’”
Walder, who was at the time still employed by Hockaday, began to worry that she would be fired if she continued to raise concerns, the lawsuit states. She said she hoped her daughter’s troubles were over because she had aged out of the Child Development Center program and was set to start pre-kindergarten in the fall of 2019, the document states.
After summer break, the once-friendly and professional relationship Walder had with Hockaday leadership turned cold, the lawsuit says.
Then, in October 2019, the lawsuit says, Walder helped a child report to an administrator an incident in which the child had seen the daughter of the head of Hockaday’s lower school choke another student.
The lawsuit says that the Hockaday leadership berated Walder in multiple meetings: first for reporting the choking incident; later for being five minutes late to teach a class; and finally, for telling other parents what happened to her daughter’s arm and for reporting Baldwin — both actions for which the headmistress said Walder could be fired.
Distraught, Walder turned in her resignation the next day, the lawsuit says. The headmistress then “proceeded to guilt [Walder] into staying for the remainder of the semester for the sake of her students” and Walder agreed to remain but was told to keep her resignation secret until after the semester, the lawsuit says.
At the end of the year, Hockaday celebrated Walder’s years of teaching, the lawsuit states, and and the truth behind her resignation was withheld from students, parents and alumni. Hockaday also received and kept donations that alumni made in Walder’s honor, it says.
Baldwin’s arrest by the FBI on child pornography charges came later that summer. After his arrest, the lawsuit states, Hockaday crafted a narrative that Baldwin had never harmed any students and that the school couldn’t have known he was unsuitable to teach children.
“In effect, Hockaday created a toxic and unsafe environment that sacrificed student safety in order to keep up Hockaday’s appearances,” the lawsuit says.
S.W. continues to suffer pain in her arm, needs assistance writing and still has “emotional episodes and outbursts,” according to the lawsuit. She is in counseling, it says.
For Walder’s daughter, the lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for “physical pain and suffering.” For both the girl and her mother, it also seeks unspecified damages for “mental anguish and emotional distress.”
Court records show Baldwin’s child pornography case is set for trial on Jan. 11.
