Elgin teacher arrested on cocaine charge

A teacher from Elgin Area School District U-46 was arrested this morning in Elgin for cocaine possession, police confirmed today.

Miguel Renteria Jr., 27, of the 1200 block of Countryside Drive, Elgin, faces a charge of unlawful possession of a controlled substance alleging police found him with 2.3 grams of cocaine early Thursday.

U-46 Spokesman Tony Sanders said Renteria is in his second year in the district, teaching a third and fourth grade split class at Hillcrest Elementary School in Elgin.

After receiving confirmation of the arrest from police this afternoon, the district placed Renteria on paid administrative leave while it completes its own probe, Sanders said. It is the first time in recent memory that a U-46 teacher was arrested on drug charges, he added.

A substitute teacher has been assigned to Renteria's classroom.

Before his Hillcrest assignment, Renteria taught a bilingual fourth-grade class at Lincoln Elementary School in Hoffman Estates. He is one of 732 U-46 teachers who will be laid off at the end of this school year because of budget constraints.

"It would not prevent us from still proceeding (with the investigation), if this is proven to be true, to ensure that he does not return to a classroom in U-46," Sanders said.

Renteria's arrest came after officers on patrol at 1:56 a.m. in the 600 block of Wellington Avenue saw him and a second man, Angel Patino, scrambling around inside a truck that was parked on the curb, said Deputy Police Chief Cecil Smith.

Police searched the truck and found 4.8 grams of marijuana in Patino's passenger seat as well as a drug pipe. Patino admitted he had been smoking marijuana several hours earlier in the truck, Smith said.

Officers also discovered an off-white, rocky substance under Renteria's driver's seat that later tested positive for the presence of cocaine, Smith said. At the station, Renteria admitted to police that the cocaine was his, Smith said.

Kane County Judge Bruce W. Lester set Renteria's bond at $15,000 during a bond hearing Thursday morning at which the accused tried to conceal a prior DUI arrest in Cook County. His next court date is Tuesday at the Kane County Judicial Center.

The charge against him is a Class 4 felony, punishable by up to three years in prison.

Patino, 30, of the 600 block of Wellington Avenue, Elgin, was charged with unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia and cannabis, both misdemeanors. He was being held on a $500 bond pending a court date Monday.