A former Cypress Christian School coach is in custody after new charges were filed accusing him of sexually grooming an underage male student who had moved to Georgia.
Jared Randall Barber, 35, was picked up by authorities in Louisiana on Thursday as a fugitive and is being transferred to Georgia.
Barber was indicted in August on three criminal counts: grooming of a minor, a felony punishable by one to five years in prison; criminal attempt to commit grooming of a minor, also a felony; and electronically furnishing obscene material to minors, a misdemeanor.
This week, a grand jury indicted Barber on three new charges: cruelty to children in the first degree, a felony punishable by 5 to 20 years in prison, and two added counts of grooming of a minor and electronically furnishing obscene material to minors.
The August indictment stated that sexual communications between Barber and the boy took place between July 2024 and April 2026, while Barber was working as a secondary school teacher and coach at Cypress Christian School in the Houston area.
According to that indictment, Barber engaged in a “pattern” of sexual communication with a minor under the age of 18, using an electronic device, to “persuade and induce said child to engage in a sexual offense.”
Barber allegedly sent the boy messages discussing the child’s penis size, masturbation, and penile erections, as well as “obscene” material containing “explicit verbal descriptions” of masturbation and sexual conduct.
Cypress Christian fired Barber in April over allegations of “inappropriate” communications with an underage male student at the school who had moved to Georgia.
Families believe Coach Barber has been targeting male students for years while working at private schools in Texas and other states, but Barber changed jobs frequently and was never reported to authorities.
Before he was hired by CCS in 2023, Barber taught/coached at several private and Christian schools in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, including Fort Worth Christian School in North Richland Hills (2020-2023), Lee Academy in Mississippi (2019-2020), Riverdale Academy in Louisiana (2018), Dallas Christian School (2017-2018), Grapevine Faith Christian School (2017), and homeschool programs in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Barber does not hold a Texas teaching certificate and is not on the state’s Do Not Hire Registry.
In a statement to Texas Scorecard, Cypress Christian School said it was aware of Barber’s arrest.
The school continues to cooperate with law enforcement in Georgia and Texas. Because this is an ongoing criminal matter, CCS will not speculate about the evidence or the outcome of the proceedings and cannot comment further. Our foremost concern remains the safety and well-being of our students and families.
Meanwhile, two top Cypress Christian School administrators were fired last week for undisclosed reasons, while CCS President Jeff Potts remains on administrative leave pending the outcome of a personnel review.
Kris Hogan, the school’s director of culture and former football coach, was fired on October 28 by Interim Head of School Patrick Reents, following a recommendation by the board to terminate his employment.
Hogan, who is also a motivational coach and speaker, had been on leave for months while a third-party reviewer investigated unspecified “concerns” raised over the summer. Based on the results of the review, the board voted to recommend terminating Hogan, but stated it will not release the full report or share details of the personnel review “to protect the privacy of the students, families and staff who participated.”
Reents also fired the school’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, David Swan, effective November 30, for reasons Reents stated he would not discuss.
Potts, the school’s president since 2019, was placed on administrative leave in September while the board conducts a separate personnel review of his leadership.
Reents, formerly the school’s director of academics and varsity football coach, was assigned to lead CCS in Potts’ absence.
The school board stated in an October 10 message that the reviews of Potts and Hogan “should not be understood or interpreted as involving the same allegations” in the case against Barber, which the board said “remains with law enforcement.”
However, Hogan and his family have known Barber for years, and Barber worked alongside Hogan at Grapevine Faith Christian School in 2017, although Cypress Christian says Barber did not include Grapevine Faith on his resume. Hogan and Potts also have a longstanding relationship, including more than a decade working together at Grapevine Faith, where Potts was an administrator and Hogan was a head football coach and athletic director.
Reents and Cypress Christian’s current Athletic Director Drew Sells also worked with Hogan at Grapevine Faith. In 2020, Sells called Hogan his “best friend,” and he was also head coach at Pantego Christian Academy while Potts was president of that school.
Two independent reviews of Cypress Christian School’s student safety policies and safeguarding practices, commissioned by the board and announced on August 4, remain ongoing. On Thursday night, Reents sent families an update and noted that the reviews are intended to look at the school “as a whole and at how we can do better. Neither review is an investigation of any person or any allegation.”
In the past few years, hundreds of Texas public and private school employees have been charged with sex crimes involving students and other children.
Texas Scorecard maintains a map of known educator sexual misconduct arrests.
