Hector P. Garcia Middle School. Photo from Google Images.
A member of the Hector P. Garcia Middle School athletics staff engaged in a years long, sexual relationship with a student she met through the women’s basketball team she coached, court documents show.
Kaylen Cottongame, 34, was arrested and charged with improper relationship between an educator and student on March 17. Cottongame was taken off the Garcia staff directory following the arrest, although Dallas ISD declined to comment on whether or not she has officially been removed from the school staff.
Police were notified of the relationship between Cottongame and the student on March 9 by the student, who is now a 22-year-old educator living in Austin.
According to an arrest affidavit, the woman said that she had become angry about the relationship after becoming a teacher and realizing her young age at the time of the relationship. The affidavit says the relationship lasted from 2014-2017, from the time the girl was 14 to 17-years-old and Cottongame was 26 to 29-years-old.
The affidavit states that as an 8th grader, the girl played on the basketball team Cottongame coached at Garcia Middle School. The girl told police she and many of her teammates had a “close” relationship with Cottongame, and Cottongame would often “take her home from basketball practice.”
The affidavit also states that the girl once observed Cottongame in her office kissing a different member of the basketball team.
Throughout the summer after her 8th grade year, the girl and her teammates remained close with Cottongame, who would take them to “places like Six Flags,” the affidavit says.
When the girl started 9th grade at Adamson High School, Cottongame would regularly attend the girl’s basketball games and later asked her to be Cottongame’s girlfriend, to which the girl replied “Yes,” the affidavit says.
According to the affidavit, when the girl was in 9th and 10th grade, Cottongame would take her to Lake Cliff Park and Kidd Springs Park following her basketball games. Cottongame would kiss her and engage in sexual contact, the girl told police.
The affidavit states that the girl’s family knew about Cottongame “bringing her home from school and buying her things,” and knew that she and her friends spent the night at Cottongame’s apartment.
During the girl’s 11th grade school year, Cottongame would bring the girl to her apartment in Knox Henderson to engage in sexual contact, in addition to Lake Cliff Park and Kidd Springs Park, the affidavit says.
On March 9, 2023, police supervised a one-party consent phone call between Cottongame and the accuser, and that the woman told Cottongame she had become “angry” about the relationship after becoming a teacher herself, the affidavit states.
The woman stated that she did not understand how Cottongame “could do that to her,” due to her young age, and Cottongame repeatedly apologized for the relationship, stating “I was stupid, I was dumb, I regret everything, I hate myself,” the affidavit says.
According to police, Linda Flores, Cottongame’s former roommate, was interviewed about the relationship on March 14.
Flores told police that while using Cottongame’s phone, she recalled observing a text message between Cottongame and the girl about the two hanging out and that Flores told Cottongame “she needed to be careful,” the affidavit states.
Flores, who was a teacher with Ferris ISD at the time she lived with Cottongame, also found a letter written by the girl to Cottongame in Cottongame’s closet, but did not remember the contents and was “unaware of the relationship between” the two, the affidavit says.
Police interviewed Cottongame in the Child Exploitation Unit on March 15, and Cottongame told police she had become close to the girl, took her home from basketball games, allowed the girl to spend the night at her apartment and engaged in a sexual relationship “for several years” with the minor.
According to court documents, Cottongame was taken to the Dallas County Jail after being arrested and her bond was set at $35,000. Bond conditions state that Cottongame may not have contact with anyone under the age of 18 or the accuser.
It is not clear if Cottongame has an attorney at this time.
Dallas ISD declined request to comment on Cottongame’s employment status or any internal investigation into the allegations against her.
