A high school band director in Clarendon Consolidated Independent School District was arrested for giving alcohol to underage students and has resigned.
Jacob Diaz, 24, was booked into the Donley County jail Wednesday and charged with furnishing alcohol to a minor, a Class A misdemeanor, according to The Clarendon Enterprise.
“We cannot have a teacher doing this,” said Donley County Sheriff Butch Blackburn. “The public needs to be able to trust a teacher will be a guardian for our kids and not allow them to do the wrong things.”
Superintendent Jarod Bellar said in a statement Thursday that the district had placed Diaz on administrative leave. “This is in the best interest of the district, and Mr. Diaz has resigned effective the end of the year.”
District officials reportedly accepted Diaz’s resignation during a school board meeting on Monday.
Diaz began his job as Clarendon High School’s band director at the beginning of the school year last fall.
Clarendon CISD is a rural district in the Texas Panhandle with three schools and fewer than 500 students.
Community members responded to the news on social media.
“Let’s face it. This is not the worst thing a Clarendon band director has ever done,” one local mom posted on Facebook. “Wrong, yes, but not the worst!”
Another Clarendon mom agreed. “Yes, there are others that have done worse, and not just the band directors!”
“Not the first and certainly won’t be the last,” added a former CHS student.
One Panhandle parent noted wryly, “It’s refreshing to see that it’s not for inappropriate behavior towards a student.”
Reports of Texas teachers caught in criminal sexual misconduct are becoming more common. Educators who engage in “inappropriate relationships” with students face second-degree felony charges punishable by two to 20 years in prison.
