38-year-old Houston high school teacher accused of having sex with student

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Former Milby High School teacher Steven Amedo is 38 years old.

“The average age of teachers in these cases is 37,” said communications consultant Terry Abbott. “So these are teachers that have been in the classroom for a long time.”

According to court documents it was a male student’s girlfriend who told the principal at Milby High about inappropriate messages she found between her boyfriend and Amedo.

Abbott says that’s how most of these illegal teacher student relationships begin. Through texting and social media.

“They exchange numbers then the teacher has the ability to send a secret message to that student anytime day or night and no one else knows about it,” Abbott said.

Court documents claim Amedo brought the boy here to his Heights area apartment where they had sex.
H.I.S.D. says the allegations of inappropriate conduct were first reported to school officials in April and Amedo was immediately removed from campus.

He’s now charged with sexual performance by a child. Amedo joins a long list of Texas teachers accused of illegal conduct with students.

“Texas had 116 of these cases that we tracked,” Abbott said. “The next closet state Pennsylvania had 43 we have far more than any other state.”

Abbott says school districts need to ban text messages between teachers and students unless they are copied to the principal or parent.

“Almost none of the teachers in Houston who’ve been convicted of this in the last few years have gotten any jail time,” said Abbott.

He says seeing a teacher go to prison for this type of crime might make others think twice.

Amedo is free on a $30,000 thousand dollar bond. He is no longer employed by H.I.S.D.

The Houston school district says,” We take situations such as this very seriously as the safety of students is always the district’s top priority.”  

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