Former La Joya ISD teacher’s certificate now under review

The Texas Education Agency’s Educator Investigations Division began reviewing former La Joya ISD Rut Damaris Kazmierczak’s Texas educator certificate Friday after the Progress Times published a story about allegations that she’d inappropriately messaged a former student in 2023.

 

 

 

The TEA says it had previously investigated Kazmiercak in 2023, though that investigation was closed “due to the situation falling outside the agency’s jurisdiction.”

 

“Student safety is the highest priority and the agency encourages anyone with evidence of educator misconduct to report such information to their local school system and TEA,” TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said.

 

According to documents released to the Progress Times through an open records request earlier this month, in March of 2023 a parent anonymously called J.D. Salinas Elementary, where Kazmierczak worked as a sixth grade reading teacher, to say she was concerned about photos circulating on social media that allegedly showed Kazmierczak nude.

 

Kazmierczak told the principal of the school and the district’s police chief that she’d received messages from a Facebook account with pictures attached that could have been doctored, but she also admitted to messaging a former student in 2020 and 2023 and sending that student authentic photos of herself — including one of her in a sports bra.

 

La Joya ISD notified the State Board for Educator Certification and suspended Kazmierczak before allowing her to quietly resign that May through a separation agreement designed to be secret.