Indiana School Secretary Caught With Student When Her Husband Walked In and What Police Found Next Is Far Worse
It started on Valentine's Day.
That's when the husband of Alicia Hughes – a 31-year-old married school secretary at Union City Junior-Senior High School in Indiana – discovered his wife with an 18-year-old student and confronted them both.
What police uncovered after that confrontation is the part that should make every parent in America furious.
Alicia Hughes and the Absence Call That Led to Child Seduction Charges
Hughes worked the front desk at Randolph Eastern School Corporation – answering phones, marking students absent, keeping the administrative pulse of the school.
It was that job where investigators say the predatory relationship began.
Court documents show a 17-year-old called the school in September 2025 to report himself absent. He spoke with Hughes. She then started texting him from her personal cell phone. Those conversations led to meetings at a local park, and police say the pair had sex at least five times at various locations off school property.
Meanwhile, investigators say Hughes was simultaneously involved with the 18-year-old her husband found her with on Valentine's Day.
Hughes now faces five felony counts of child seduction and sits in the Randolph County Jail on a $25,000 cash-only bond.
What Randolph Eastern School Corporation Still Hasn't Answered
Superintendent Neal Adams issued a careful statement confirming Hughes had been "removed from all duties with students pending the outcome of the legal process."
Notice what Adams did not say.
He didn't say she was fired. He didn't say whether she is still drawing a paycheck. He offered no explanation for how a school employee was able to use a routine absence call to begin texting a student from her personal phone – and nobody caught it for months.
Adams said the district takes the allegations "with the utmost seriousness, care, and urgency." That's the kind of sentence lawyers write. It answers nothing.
Indiana passed legislation in 2017 requiring expanded criminal background checks, reference verification, and regular re-screening of school employees. Randolph Eastern apparently did all of that – and still employed someone who allegedly groomed and abused a teenager through the front office phone line. The question Adams owes this community is simple: what was the policy on staff communicating with students via personal phones, and why wasn't it enforced?
Sex abuse attorney Tom Blessing has seen this playbook before. "Usually, we see abuse claims involving teachers and coaches," he said, "but any school staff with access to children could use their position of authority and trust to take advantage of them." In cases like this, Blessing said, his firm looks hard at the school's screening, supervision, and internal reporting policies. "We usually don't have to look very far to find" the failures, he added.
Indiana School Employee Arrested — and the Pattern No One Is Talking About
This is not a Union City problem. Indiana alone has seen a wave of these cases – in 2024, Lake Central High School teacher Brittany Fortinberry was charged with multiple counts of rape and child seduction after allegedly coercing several male students into sexual acts at her home. A diving coach at a northwest Indiana high school drew four years in prison for sex crimes against two 15-year-old female students. A Mishawaka basketball coach was convicted of child seduction. A northeast Indiana police officer was charged for a relationship with a 16-year-old at a school where he worked.
The predators keep changing. The institutional excuses stay the same.
In Wisconsin, a state investigation documented over 200 teacher license inquiries tied to sexual misconduct or grooming between 2018 and 2023 alone – triggering legislation proposed in January 2026 to make grooming a felony. Thirteen states have already done exactly that. Indiana is not one of them.
The abuse in this case didn't start in a classroom or after a game. It started with a phone call to the front office, and it continued for months because no one was watching.
Parents should ask their own school districts one simple question: what is the written policy on staff communicating with students via personal cell phones? If the answer is vague or slow in coming, that's the answer. If Randolph Eastern had one, Neal Adams still hasn't said so.
Sources:
- Louis Casiano, "Indiana school secretary charged after husband finds her with student, probe reveals affair with another," Fox News, February 16, 2026.
- Austin Hanson and David Gay, "High school secretary arrested on child seduction charges in Randolph County," FOX59, February 17, 2026.
- "School secretary caught by husband with student, faces child seduction charges for sex with second student: Police," The Blaze, February 23, 2026.
- "Indiana School Employee Charged With Having Sex With Student," MJC Attorneys, February 2026.
- Baylor Spears, "Bill Requires School Rules to Prevent Staff Grooming Students," Urban Milwaukee/Wisconsin Examiner, January 10, 2026.
