A former middle school teacher in Houston has been arrested for allegedly using social media to connect with students and coax them into having sex with him.
Reginald Van Long, 27, was formerly employed as a teacher at the Academy of Accelerated Learning, a Houston charter school. During the 2022-2023 school year, he allegedly engaged in sexual activity with five of his students, two of whom have spoken to police, according to KHOU.
Several second-degree felony charges were filed against Van Long late last month in Harris County, including one count of improper relationship with a student and one count of online solicitation of a minor younger than 14. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers arrested him in Tyler and booked him into Smith County jail.
Van Long allegedly confessed to having had sexual relations with one of the victims — aged 14 at the time — and sending sexually explicit messages to another when she was 12. In the case of the first, the alleged sexual assaults occurred in his vehicle and in the girl’s bedroom after he had snuck through a window.
The second victim claimed that he had asked her for nude photos and tried to get her to leave school to have sex with him. He even allegedly suggested in one message that he would kidnap her since “he didn’t want to wait 5-6 years for her to turn 18,” according to KLTV.
Van Long is the subject of an investigation by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), per the agency’s public registry.
As previously covered by The Dallas Express, teacher and staff misconduct has filled headlines in recent years, with many in North Texas ranging from improper relationships to sexual assault, even in Dallas ISD.
While TEA is charged with investigating such allegations, an advocacy group recently accused the TEA’s misconduct reporting system of having “serious and unjust inconsistencies,” as reported by The Dallas Express.
Citizens Defending Freedom found that 120 sexual misconduct cases and 460 cases of inappropriate relationships with a student or minor had been reported through August 2023 in 97 independent school districts in 24 counties. Yet, of these reports, a significant number had no case codes, investigation dates, or dispositions. Just 110 school employees ended up on the Do Not Hire Registry, and only 24 had their teaching certificates permanently revoked.