Sexual Relationship With FL Teacher Topic Of Boy's College Entry Essay

BROWARD COUNTY, FL — An award-winning South Florida teacher faces charges after a 16-year-old boy from Connecticut wrote about their sexual relationship in a college admissions essay, according to multiple reports.

Carlos Montero, 46, who has taught at both Miami-Dade and Broward county schools, was arrested Oct. 3 by Fort Lauderdale police and faces four charges, including sexual assault on a minor and obscene communication use of a computer to seduce or solicit or lure a child.

Montero is accused of meeting the Connecticut teen on Tinder in 2021, when the boy was visiting a great aunt in Miami-Dade County, according to Local 10 News. They moved their conversation to Snapchat, trading nude pictures before meeting in person.

The teacher picked up the boy from where he was staying in Golden Beach and brought him to his Fort Lauderdale home, where he gave the teen an alcoholic drink and they had sex, CBS News reported.

While the teen identified himself as 18 years old on his Tinder profile, he told police that he later told Montero that he was a minor, reports said.

The boy later regretted the encounter, eventually blocking Montero on Snapchat, though they kept in touch initially. In an October 2021 college entry essay about “self-growth,” he wrote about the incident and how he “came to terms” with it, NBC Miami reported.

After this, with the support of school officials, he told his mother and police about the incident.

Montero was a science teacher at Scheck Hillel Community School. He was also the department’s chair for the junior high and high school, according to WSVN.

Originally from Venezuela, he previously taught chemistry at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami-Dade County, according to NBC Miami. He earned a chemical engineering degree from Penn State University and a master’s in industrial engineering from the University of Miami.

In 2015, Montero was honored by President Barack Obama, who awarded him the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

He was also honored as the Miami-Dade County Science Teacher of the Year in 2008, reports said.