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Katherine Harper: Texas Cheerleading Coach Pregnant By 15-Year-Old Student?

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 03:42 PST, Mar 31, 2017

Texas cheerleading coach Katherine Ruth Harper is allegedly pregnant with the baby of a 15-year-old student. Harper is also a married English teacher at Tidwell Middle School in Trophy Club, Texas. The affluent town is a Dallas suburb.

Katherine Harper, 27, was arrested and charged with having an improper relationship with a Byron Nelson High School student from the Northwest Independent School District last week. According to the cheerleading coach’s arrest warrant, she and the 15-year-old student also traded multiple nude photos via their respective cell phones, the Star-Telegram reports.

Katherine Harper is eight months pregnant. Police investigators are not yet sure if the 15-year-old student is definitely the father of the unborn child.

“If we go back in time it’s around when that event took place, but she is married, we believe, still. So we’re not sure what that leads to,” Trophy Club Police Chief Patrick Arata said.

Trophy Club police officers launched an investigation into the Texas cheerleading coach after receiving an anonymous tip about the alleged sexual relationship between her and a young teenage boy via the school website after she became pregnant. Both Katherine Harper and the student were named in the tip. The student’s name is not being released to the public because he is a juvenile.

When Texas school officials questioned the 15-year-old student about the alleged sexual relationship with the Tidwell Middle School teacher, he confirmed their suspicions and cried, the Daily Mail reports. The unnamed minor was also reportedly a former student of the seventh-grade teacher. Fox4 is reporting the Northwest ISD teacher was also the student’s tennis coach when he was in middle school.

The Dallas News reports an investigation was previously launched into Katherine Harper over an alleged sexual relationship with the student last September after a tip was received by the school, but the matter was dropped for unknown reasons. The second tip, after Harper was visibly pregnant, was sent via the school website in December of last year.

In addition to the nude photos allegedly shared between the cheerleading coach and the boy, explicit text messages were also exchanged. Katherine Harper and her former student met at the home of the juvenile and had sex while they were both out of class on spring break, according to the report filed by the Trophy Club police investigators.

When the student was being interviewed by Texas Child Protective Services case workers, he reportedly revealed he and the teacher drank several alcoholic beverages together before stripping off their clothes and having sex.

“One thing led to another and she told me to ‘put it in’ and I did,” the student told the case workers.

According to the 15-year-old boy, he and the cheerleading coach had sex many other times later that same June and July of 2016. When investigators searched the student’s cell phone records, they found 76 messages exchanged between he and Harper during that time frame.

The Northwest Independent School District is one of the largest districts in the region and serves students from three counties – Tarrant, Denton, and Wise, according to the school’s website. The district includes five middle schools, 17 elementary schools, one accelerated high school, and three comprehensive high schools.

The Texas cheerleading coach has now been released on a $15,000 bail bond. Katherine Harper was placed on administrative leave at the time of her arrest and remained on leave after being released from jail. Whether the Tidwell Middle School teacher is on paid or unpaid administrative leave remains unclear.

[Featured Image by bikeriderlondon/Shutterstock]

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