Ex-Clark High School volunteer coach held on lewdness charge
A former volunteer soccer coach at Clark High School in Las Vegas was arrested Thursday on suspicion of felony lewdness involving a child.
Juan Alfredo Chavez, 25, was arrested at his home and was being held Friday at the Clark County Detention Center without bail, facing one count of lewdness with a child older than 14.
The arrest of the former boys junior varsity soccer coach arose from an Oct. 20 incident that Clark County School District police said happened on school grounds and involved a 14-year-old girl. A press release announcing his arrest provided no other details about the incident.
Chavez, who had been a CCSD volunteer since December 2010, is no longer allowed on school district properties across the Las Vegas Valley, police said. The suspect has also been removed from the district’s approved coaches list. According to the school district, Chavez successfully passed a background check in order to be a coach and have contact with students.
He is the sixth school district employee to be arrested since July 1, the start of the new fiscal year for the district. His is the second district arrest involving lewdness with a child.
During the 2017-18 year, the district arrested 11 staff members on allegations of sexual misconduct with a child. A Review-Journal investigative series titled Broken Trust highlighted some of the major issues contributing to the problem, including providing sufficient training for employees and requiring thorough background checks.
The series found the district’s training was out-of-date with current laws and didn’t include enough concrete examples of what behavior would be inappropriate.
After the series ran, the district created and implemented a new social media policy for employees and a new state law was passed requiring more-thorough background checks on all employees and volunteers in the district.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Meghin Delaney contributed to this report.
