Arlington charter teacher accused of improper student relationship. Principal also arrested
A North Texas charter school teacher has been arrested and fired after he was accused of having an improper relationship with a student, and the school’s principal also faces charges related to failing to report the abuse, according to court records.
Another terminated employee faces a charge of child grooming, and several other school employees have been placed on leave during the ongoing investigation.
The Newman International Academy Police Department first arrested Ruel Barbee, 53, who had been working as an instructional aide at the academy’s Gibbins school in Arlington since 2023.
Campus police received information about the alleged improper relationship between Barbee and a student on Feb. 6, during a separate unrelated investigation, according to a news release from the charter school’s law enforcement department.
Newman International Academy Police Department officers and detectives investigated the allegations and interviewed witnesses before getting an arrest warrant for Barbee. Police did not release further details of the allegations.
A second employee, 20-year-old Gabrielle Little, was arrested on Feb. 10, and she faces a charge of child grooming, according to court records. School officials said Little also was fired, but it’s unclear what her job was at the school.
The Gibbins campus’ principal, Richard Adams, also was arrested on Wednesday, Feb. 12, according to Tarrant County Jail records and he remained in jail on Thursday. He faces charges of failure to make a required child abuse report, tampering with evidence and tampering with a witness, the records show. Bond for Adams, 63, has been set at $50,000. It’s not clear whether he has a defense attorney to represent him.
Adams, along with the campus’ athletic director, head varsity girls’ basketball coach and an assistant football coach have been placed on administrative leave with pay until the criminal and administrative investigations are completed, school officials said in a news release on Wednesday.
“School district police officers and detectives continued to investigate the conduct of district staff and campus level staff assigned at Gibbins in connection to these arrests,” the release states
The Newman International Academy Police Department will hold a press conference to provide updates regarding the arrests of the three staff members on Thursday, Feb. 13, at 4 p.m., Chief of Police Matthew Antkowiak said in a news release.
The press conference is open to the public and will be held in front of the Newman International Academy at Gibbins building, at 1111 Gibbins Road in Arlington.
Barbee was taken into custody on Feb. 6 and booked into the Tarrant County Jail. He was released on $15,000 bond on Feb. 7, jail records show. Little was released on $15,000 bond on Feb. 11.
Defense attorneys for Barbee and Little are not listed in court records.
After his arrest, Barbee was fired from the school, Superintendent Dr. Sheba George said a statement.
“Although we are unable to control the actions and behavior of individuals, Newman International Academy takes all allegations like these very seriously and takes immediate actions to protect victims and complainants when situations like this occur, including placing involved staff on administrative leave to facilitate both administrative and criminal investigations,” George said.
The Gibbins campus is a middle and high school that serves seventh- through 12-grade students.
Another Newman International Academy educator, coach Alberto de la Cruz, was arrested in 2023 and charged with having an improper relationship with a high school student. He was also charged with sexual assault of a child.
The school’s police department said de la Cruz used his role as the athletics director to gain access to the student and “deliberately manipulated and coerced the victim through the power imbalance” that existed because of his position of authority.
De la Cruz received deferred adjudication and eight years of probation as part of a plea agreement in May, according to court records.
In a separate case in October, at IT manager for the academy, 45-year-old Jeremy Henrickson, was arrested in Mansfield and accused of possessing images of child sexual abuse. The charges against Henrickson did not involve students or school property, according to the school’s police department.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 12:53 PM.