SC principal remained active at his school after being accused of sex with a student
READ MORE
Unchartered Territory
Unchartered Territory is an ongoing series by The State Media Co. about South Carolina’s changing charter school landscape
Expand All
Social media posts indicate that an Upstate charter school principal who was indicted in October on a charge of sexual battery with a student remained involved with his school for months until being arrested in late January.
Photos posted on the Calhoun Falls Charter School Facebook page show Kalan Rogers, an award-winning principal at the Abbeville County public charter school, was still attending school and district functions at least as recently as mid-January.
In one picture posted in early November, he is shown with members of the school’s homecoming court. In another, he’s seen celebrating with school staff on the final day before winter break in December.
Rogers, 31, was indicted Oct. 11 following an investigation by the attorney general’s office and notified of the charge that month, records show. South Carolina’s chief prosecutor took on the principal’s case because authorities initially thought it could involve multiple jurisdictions, spokesman Robert Kittle said. At this time, however, it is confined to only one.
Rogers is accused of performing oral sex on a 17-year-old student in Spartanburg County more than seven years ago when he was a physical education teacher and track coach at Union County High School, according to the indictment.
While it’s not illegal in South Carolina for an adult to have consensual sex with a 17-year-old, it is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison for someone affiliated with a school in an official capacity to have sex with a 16- or 17-year-old student who attends that school.
Rogers has been on administrative leave since at least Jan. 31, when he was arraigned and reported to the Spartanburg County Detention Center for processing, officials said. It’s unclear whether he had continued working at Calhoun Falls up to that date.
The school’s board declined to comment on the principal’s case or answer questions about his employment status.
“The Board has acted in accordance with our policies to ensure our school’s operational needs are met during this time to ensure no interruption for our students and families,” it said in a statement.
The Charter Institute at Erskine, which sponsors Calhoun Falls, said in a statement that “upon learning about this incident (Jan. 31), the Institute immediately confirmed that Mr. Rogers was placed on administrative leave and denied access to the school.”
Charter Institute spokeswoman Ashley Epperson said the district also removed Rogers from its Institute Leadership Cohort, a professional development group for charter school leaders that attends training sessions and takes annual domestic and international trips to visit high-performing schools.
Rogers flew to Arizona with the group in October, shortly after he was indicted; spoke at the Charter Institute’s academic showcase on Nov. 1, where Calhoun Falls was recognized for its “Culture of Excellence”; and participated in a Jan. 16 meeting between charter school leaders and members of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville, social media posts show.
The principal’s apparent involvement in school and district activities in the months between his indictment and his arrest could stem from the unusual circumstances of his prosecution.
Ordinarily, when someone is accused of a crime, they’re picked up immediately on an arrest warrant and taken to jail. Under most circumstances, the defendant is entitled to a bond hearing within 24 hours. Their case may later be presented to a grand jury in the county where the alleged offense occurred to secure an indictment.
Rogers, on the other hand, was indicted before an arrest warrant was issued, in what is known as a direct presentment. In his case, after a Spartanburg County grand jury returned an indictment, the attorney general’s office requested an arraignment and bond hearing “at the next available term of court,” according to a motion filed Oct. 24 with the Spartanburg County Clerk of Court’s Office.
While records show Rogers and his attorney were copied on that request, the attorney general’s office did not tell Calhoun Falls Charter School or any other interested parties about the charges at that time, Kittle said.
“That’s just common practice,” until an arrest warrant has been served, the spokesman explained.
Due to the court’s extensive docket of cases, Rogers wasn’t set for arraignment until Jan. 31, about 3½ months after he was indicted, records show. It appears that only after he was arraigned in court and reported to jail did the charges he’d faced since October become widely known.
Spartanburg County Clerk of Court Amy Cox, whose office is responsible for docket management, said her staff treated Rogers’ case like any other.
“Had we had any indication it was imperative to get this defendant to court, we would have made special arrangements,” she said. “But if it’s just a regular motion that comes through, we put it on the regular motions docket and however long it takes to be heard is however long it takes.”
One veteran solicitor who spoke to The State on the condition of anonymity said in cases like this prosecutors can have a judge sign a pickup order and require law enforcement to pick up a defendant immediately after he’s been indicted rather than waiting until an arraignment and bond hearing can be scheduled.
It’s not clear why that did not occur in this instance.
Kittle, the attorney general’s spokesman, wrote in an email that “nothing slipped through the cracks” in the principal’s case.
An attorney for Rogers declined comment.
Records show he posted a $10,000 bond and was released from custody Jan. 31. As a condition of his bond, Rogers is prohibited from having contact with any named victim or potential prosecution witness, but is not barred from being around schools or children, Cox said.
The 2012 Calhoun Falls graduate has served as principal of his alma mater since 2018, when he was just 24 years old.
As a student, Rogers was a multi-sport athlete, drum major in the marching band and senior class president, according to a 2020 video the Charter Institute at Erskine produced to honor him.
Three years after taking the helm at Calhoun Falls, he was named one of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ “30 under 30 Changemakers,” and later that year appeared on Fox News alongside the alliance’s then-president to discuss school choice and the pandemic.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "SC principal remained active at his school after being accused of sex with a student."
