Miami Senior High teacher arrested after ‘inappropriately’ texting 2 students
A Miami-Dade teacher sent sexually explicit and “uncomfortable” messages to two of his students over the course of months and even threatened to tank one of the girl’s grades, police said.
He was fired and now finds himself behind bars.
Roger Alaniz, 24, was a teacher at Miami Senior High School. In December, a Miami-Dade Schools police detective was made aware that Alaniz had been sending “inappropriate messages” to two students through social media and text since October, according to an arrest report.
It started when Alaniz wrote his personal number on a paper a student was working on, according to the report. She told the detective she ignored but that Alaniz asked numerous times when she was going to text him.
She said she felt pressured and added him as a contact. The first conversation was “normal,” police said, but Alaniz soon told her, “I think I might have a crush on you. Is that weird?”
The student felt uncomfortable and took steps to try to avoid him — arriving at his class late and waiting for friends to enter so they would never be alone together.
In November, Alaniz sent another student a friend-request through Instagram, which the female student accepted, the report read. She asked Alaniz a question about a class assignment, and he, in return, asked for her number.
In text conversations, Alaniz gave her advice about her personal problems with friends and boys, police said. Alaniz asked how sexually active she had been.
Alaniz also invited her to go watch a movie and drive around town with him. The student began ignoring his messages.
Alaniz then threatened her by saying her grades would be affected. When the student said she wanted a different teacher, Alaniz said she wouldn’t be able to get out of his class, and even if she did, “he would find her.”
On Thursday, Alaniz was arrested and charged with two counts of child abuse with no great bodily harm and two counts of offenses against students by authority figures. As of Friday, he remained in the Miami-Dade Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
In a statement, Miami-Dade County Public Schools said it is “profoundly troubled by the concerning allegations made against the former employee, leading to his arrest.”
When the district first learned of the suspected behavior, Alaniz was immediately reassigned away from the school, the statement reads. After the police investigation, he was fired.
“M-DCPS goes to great lengths to provide a safe school environment for our students and employees; all new teachers undergo ethics and civil rights compliance/Title IX training as part of their onboarding,” the district said. “This individual will be precluded from seeking future employment with the District.”
