GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. – Three teachers face charges after investigators said they tried to solicit minors for sex online.

Police said David Pace, David Brian Seus and Kevin Samuel chatted with detectives posing as 13 and 14-year-old girls. Sheriff’s officials, who caught the men in a computer sex sting, said the suspects knew they were talking to children.

"To come up with three teachers in a short period of time was a little unusual," Guilford County Sheriff B.J. Barnes said.

Two of the suspects are Guilford County instructors.

Detectives arrested 30-year-old Seus Thursday evening after they said he knowingly solicited a sexual encounter over the computer with a 13-year-old girl. He resigned Friday morning as a special-education teacher and lacrosse coach at Western Guilford High School.

Samuel, 47, also resigned Friday as a teacher’s assistant at the High School Ahead Academy. Officials said they arrested him before he could set up a meeting with his intended target.

"He was due to go on a field trip with some other children," Barnes added.

The sheriff said Samuel admitted in the chat room to meeting other children and even told his victim to "be careful of perverts, lots of older guys would love to get to you."

Guilford County School System spokesman Chad Campbell acknowledged the resignations of the two men in a statement and said the district would be conducting its own internal investigation.

“The safety and welfare of children is the district’s top priority, which is why GCS conducts stringent criminal background checks on all individuals recommended for employment and performs checks annually on a random sample of all employees, including substitutes," Campbell said in the statement.

David Pace, 58, is a 15-year veteran with the Hendersonville County Public School System. Investigators said he chatted with detectives in Buncombe, Guilford, and Henderson counties.

"[Pace] asked questions such as, ‘Have you ever allowed a teacher to look up your dress?’ " Barnes said.

Barnes said school resource officers were involved in the sting -- something he said was ironic, but helpful.

"We could be there anytime, we could be there every day, 24/7," Barnes said.

Computer forensics experts with the sheriff's office will now take all three men's computers and look at their histories to see if any other children were victimized.

The Guilford County Sheriff's Office is working on a grant that would allow the department to have cross-jurisdictional powers during similar sex stings. Barnes said that means sheriff’s officials could pose as children from any part of the state to catch online predators.

Photos of arrested teachers