Texas Defamation per se suit from a Facebook post

Location: Texas

Facebook post/defamation per se

Good afternoon legal friends!
Back in February of 2025 I was given a cease and desist letter by 2 mothers of a boy that is in my son’s school. I made a Facebook post asking what I should do to the community we live in because a child had exposed himself to my son (and another student) in the restroom as well as head butted him in face without warrant. The school hadn’t followed up with us regarding the first incident (exposing in sept 24) and now physically hitting (January 25). My post didn’t name any names, list teachers or the school. My son doesn’t even go to a public school but a charter school and didn’t list that either. I only mentioned grade and age range. I wasn’t sure what steps I should take since I was concerned for my child’s safety but also was concerned for this child hurting mine because those behaviors are not normal. So in February the parents of the child (yes the actual parents) obtained a lawyer to send me a cease and desist letter to take down the post, create a new post apologizing and that my accusations were false as well as pay $12,500 in damages. I asked 2-3 different opinions from a lawyer and was told I didn’t have to respond as this is usually a scare tactic.

Fast forward to today I got a letter for a civil citation that I have to respond to in 20 days. It doesn’t say anything specifically other than defamation per se. they now also want $250,000 in damages.

Now I again didn’t list any names or say anything that would point to who the child was or even the school. The parents of this child have a friend that worked at the school and this worker knew me and therefore knew the situation regarding my son and who I was because of my name. The general public wouldn’t have known. Secondly I have a message proving this child did in fact headbutt my son. The message read “regarding the headbutt, witnesses stated the two boys were roasting each other prior to him head butting him in the face”. Which I argued that my verbally roasting shouldn’t warrant a physical confrontation but the school I guess dismissed this students behavior because they were verbally roasting one another. I have other opinions about that.
I also have another parent whose son was exposed to as well and was to afraid to say anything. Lastly a teacher admitted she has been trying to get this student expelled because his behavior was bad and he has been an issue.

So all this to say I need to reply now, but based on these facts about my situation do you really think this case has ground to stand on?

My personal opinion is these moms were upset on what the responses were from the public on my post. As a lot of people stated to report the behavior to the police, to call CPS due to the exposing and to file a lawsuit against the school. So because of this they are going the real extra mile to say what I said was defamation on their family but also that my sons allegations were not true and the school favored in their sons behalf. Other parents who know of this student have also said he has had some behavior issues. If the school were to look at this kids record and mine it would be evident this kid does in fact have behavioral issues.

Their son was moved classes after the headbutt incident. That’s what was done.

Needless to say I reached out because I truly didn’t know what to do with the school. I was also concerned about the kid because I was a foster parent and know behaviors as those could mean things at home. I did end up filing a police report because it was suggested to me.

Thanks in advance. It’s wild to me this is where I’m at all because my son was being exposed to and hit but here we are.