The U.S. epidemic of teachers sexually exploiting their students struck again this week when a 26-year-old New Jersey chemistry teacher was charged with having sex with one of his teenage pupils in his apartment.
Jason Howe, who also coached boys’ and girls’ sports at Sterling High School in Camden County, remains in custody since he was arrested earlier this month after the student came forward to local police in Runnemede, a New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia.
Howe was a teacher at Sterling High School, where he also coached boys’ and girls’ cross country teams and freshman boys’ basketball, as well assisted with the coaching of girls’ track and field, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
Prosecutors have charged him with 2nd-degree sexual assault and 2nd-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
The school district has suspended him and banned him from school property.
According to the prosecutor’s office:
On Friday, April 3, 2026, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit was notified by local police that a female student, who was at least 16 but less than 18 years old, reported having a sexual relationship with a teacher. During the investigation, detectives determined Howe and the victim engaged in sexual intercourse at his apartment in Runnemede in March 2026.
That same day police took Howe into custody. He has a detention hearing set for next week.
Although the girl was over the age of 16, the age of consent in New Jersey, it is illegal for teachers to have sex with students, the New York Post reported. A conviction on Howe’s charges carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
Howe reportedly was a graduate of Sterling and started teaching there in 2021.
“I really love working with the students,” Howe posted in a video of “staff intros” on the school’s website, the Post reported Friday. The entry has since been taken down.
“My teaching style really revolves around getting the students out of their seats and getting them involved, so they’ll never be sitting in my class listening for too long,” he continued.
He apparently was popular with students.
“He was a great teacher,” senior Nate Schwarz told WPVI. “I would have never expected him to do this. It was shocking to me when I found out.”
However, at least one parent said the allegations were not a surprise, though the parent was short on details.
“There is a culture around Sterling High School,” the parent told Philadelphia’s ABC affiliate. “I don’t want to send my child back to school to be uncomfortable.”
According to exclusive reporting by Breitbart News earlier this month, leading researchers say that a culture of permissiveness and reluctance to report fellow teachers is fueling what they called “rampant” educator sexual misconduct in the past two decades in the United States.
Also, while typically it is relationships between adult female teachers and teen boys under the age of consent that generate the salacious headlines, national studies show almost nine out of ten cases are perpetrated by male teachers, coaches, and school employees.
Researchers told Breitbart that in those cases, the male perpetrators in the grooming process convince their victims that they are “in love” — typically not emphasizing a sexual attraction, which is usually found in cases involving women teachers.
Charol Shakeshaft, the country’s leading researcher on the problem, called the number of cases of educator sexual misconduct in United States schools “100 times worse” than the pedophile sex scandal that hit the Catholic church in recent decades.
Veteran crime writer Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets , which documents one of the worst cases of child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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