High school teacher’s license suspended over inappropriate notes in students’ yearbooks and devil costume in class

An investigation into a teacher accused of saying “hail Satan” while wearing a devil costume in class led to more allegations that he had written inappropriate notes in yearbooks of his high school students.

Jesse Ruiz taught math at Mesa High School in Arizona before he resigned from his post in November over his behavior in class. He has since agreed to a negotiated settlement that would suspense his teaching license for two years.

‘What really tipped it over for me is he kept telling him no, and the teacher kept persisting.’

As the Blaze reported previously, a student in the class expressed his discomfort about the incident from October to KPNX-TV.

“Some people thought it was funny, some people didn’t like it, some people were like ‘whatever,’ they just blew it off,” said Nathaniel Hamlet, a sophomore at the time.

He said that Ruiz waved the pitchfork over students’ heads and said “hail Satan” to some. It bothered Hamlet because he is a professing Christian.

“I said, ‘Don’t do that to me,’ and I pushed [the pitchfork] away, maybe three or four times, and he still said it and still did it,” Hamlet recalled.

Hamlet told his father, who had been a Mesa Public School board candidate, and he complained to the principal of the school.

“I was livid because I am a Christian as well, obviously,” said the father to the station. “What really tipped it over for me is he kept telling him no, and the teacher kept persisting.”

Ruiz had claimed that he had dressed up as a part of Halloween spirit week along with another teacher, who had dressed up as an angel. He was placed on administrative leave soon afterward.

RELATED: Grade school teacher fired after admitting having bipolar disorder and psychosis, supporting satanism on social media

Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images

After Ruiz resigned and had his license suspended, Chris Hamlet told KPNX-TV that he thought the teacher could redeem himself after two years. But then he heard about other accusations against the teacher and changed his mind.

Ruiz reportedly made inappropriate comments to students in their yearbooks. Some examples included:

• “[T]hanks for all the free Canes HEHE. Gay Sex … LOL.”
• “I am gonna miss the f**k out of you …”
• “You should have run away from home or we should have kidnapped you,” to a female student.
• “I think about every day and especially when I found a new … or some new eye candy 😉 on Instagram,” to the same student.

“That was the big red flag right there,” Chris Hamlet said about the allegations. “This is the pattern, and it’s very dangerous. They should have stopped him at Skyline. He should have never got to Mesa. … I think they need to pull his license. He has no business teaching children.”

Ruiz will need to complete a course about professional boundaries after the suspension before he’s allowed to teach again.

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