A TEACHER has been suspended after dressing up as the devil in class and leaving inappropriate comments in his students’ yearbooks.
This week, Jesse Ruiz, a former employee of Mesa High School in Arizona, was suspended by the state board of education following an inquiry into his troubling behavior in the classroom.
In 2023, Ruiz’s students were horrified to turn up to their maths lesson to find their teacher dressed as the devil.
During the lesson he then repeatedly chanted ‘Hail Satan’ while seemingly trying to provoke students.
Student Nathaniel Hamlin told NBC affiliate KPNX that Ruiz would repeatedly “get a pitchfork [and] put it in my face”.
A secret picture taken by one of the students in the class showed the teacher wearing red devil horns and carrying a matching red trident.
“He did it to everyone. He did it to people he didn’t even know,” Hamlin explained.
“He was saying ‘Hail Satan’ like five or six times. It just hurt me because I believe in God … it just ticked me off.”
His father Chris said: “I was irate. I mean, we’re Christians, we believe in Jesus.”
After the episode, Chris lodged a formal complaint with the school district, leading to an investigation and the decision to place Ruiz on administrative leave while the matter was looked into.
The maths teacher resigned a month later and now the state board of education has confirmed the allegations against him.
“Respondent [Ruiz] had dressed up as the Devil at MHS and stated ‘hail Satan’ multiple times,” the board wrote in its report.
As part of the district’s examination, students verified that Ruiz had made inappropriate statements and gestures in class, including uttering “hail satan,” displaying his middle finger to the students, and using foul language.
As a result, they revoked his teaching license in the state for two years and has to attend courses including one on professional boundaries.
Chris and his son called this a “just punishment” but later found out about the teacher’s other questionable acts.
‘RED FLAG’
In their report, investigators also described how just a few months before, when he was employed at Skyline High also in Mesa, Ruiz had left inappropriate comments in students’ yearbooks.
He was reported by a fellow teacher for writing things like: “Thanks for all the free canes HEHE. Gay Sex…LOL” and “I am going to miss the f*** out of you”.
“You should have run away from home or we should have kidnapped you,” a comment he left in a female student’s book read.
Meanwhile, he also described wanting to stay with a student in Italy, noting that when they returned they could “hang out”.
“I can take you to all those fun places,” he wrote.
After learning of these disturbing notes, Chris said it was a “big red flag” that should have stopped Ruiz from ever continuing to teach but the fact it was ignored meant Ruiz could continue his “dangerous pattern”.
“They should have stopped him at Skyline, he should never have got to Mesa. He has no business teaching children,” the furious father said.
When the allegations were first lodged against Ruiz in 2023, he told the news outlet that the devil costume was part of spirit week at the school with the theme of “dynamic duos” and that a colleague was also in the classroom dressed as an angel.
He did not comment on the inappropriate comments he made to students.
Meanwhile, his attorney admitted that Ruiz did make those comments but noted that the district found no sexual misconduct between the teacher and his students.
Just a year before the allegations came to light, Ruiz was awarded by for his commitment to teaching.
He was named KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Gaydos and Chad Show‘s Pay Tribute to a Teacher winner for January 2022 getting him a $2,500 reward after being nominated by his sister.
The radio praised the AP calculus and physics teacher for working “long hours” and for his “eagerness to raise the bar and come up with new, creative ideas to help his students learn the material in an effective way”.
After completing the mandatory courses, Ruiz will be able to teach in Arizona again in two years.
