Arlington charter school principal pleads guilty to failing to report abuse
More than a year after a child sexual assault investigation, a former Arlington charter school principal pleaded guilty Wednesday, according to Tarrant County court records.
Richard Adams, principal of the Gibbins campus was arrested in February 2025 on charges related to failing to report abuse, tampering with evidence and tampering with a witness. Adams received probation for seven years, court records show.
“He’s got to go through a sex offender indoctrination program where they do a polygraph and all that kind of stuff to see where he falls. And he’s no longer allowed to be employed in education,” former Newman International Academy Police Chief Matthew Antkowiak told Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV.
Antkowiak, who is now retired from the charter, started the investigation after two seventh-grade girls went to a campus police officer to report the incident.
Ruel Barbee, who had been working as an instructional aide at the academy’s Gibbins school in Arlington since 2023, was the first to be arrested in last year’s investigation, Star-Telegram reported.
Barbee pleaded guilty earlier this year to having an inappropriate relationship with a student and received 7 years probation, according to court records. He “is unable to be employed in education for the rest of his life,” Antkowiak said.
The charges against a third school employee who had been arrested on allegations of child grooming were dismissed, Antkowiak said.
Antkowiak told WFAA-TV that he hopes the outcome “reassures students and parents that predators are being held accountable.”
“We’ve taken two predators, two bad people, and we’ve made it really hard for them to be around our children,” Antkowiak said.
Affidavit details assault investigation
According to the affidavit supporting Barbee’s arrest, the victim told police they started speaking in May 2024. After school resumed in September, Barbee began “gazing” at her, and they subsequently kissed and touched sexually on several occasions, the Star-Telegram reported. Barbee admitted touching the victim in a Feb. 6 police interview.
Adams was accused of not following the law that required him to report any allegations of sexual contact between a teacher and a student within 48 hours, and of destroying emails in his school account that included critical evidence, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, Adams also asked a student to delete evidence from the student’s cellphone, the Star-Telegram previously reported.
Detectives wrote in the affidavit that despite “personal knowledge of two separate improper relationships between student and educator” Adam allowed a suspect’s wife to come to the school and collect the suspect’s personal property during the investigation.
This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 6:57 PM.