A 350-pound Minnesota science teacher learned this week what his own punishment will be for stepping on his sixth-grade students’ backs “like a step stool” as punishment for not taking an evacuation drill seriously.
One boy, who ended up going to the hospital, was one of three students who received the educator’s bizarre discipline in February of 2025.
An Otter Tail County District Court judge this week ordered Jason Rogers, 49, to surrender his teaching license, write letters of apology to his victims, perform community service and report for two years of supervised probation.
The former teacher pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor assault charges in the case. If Rogers successfully completes the probation, the charges will be dismissed.
The teacher’s inexplicable behavior, which occurred in the small, 500-student Underwood School District 175 miles north of Minneapolis, did more than make his victims squirm, according to news reports.
A sheriff’s deputy was called to a local hospital for one of the students, who had begun crying when he was stepped on without warning “like a stepping stool,” according to the original criminal complaint.
According to the Minnesota Star Tribune’s reporting last year:
The following day, Rogers told a detective that his students were asked to line up against the wall and sit during a lockdown drill, but a couple of students decided to lie on their stomachs next to the door; he said he “didn’t feel the class was taking the drill seriously” and then “placed his foot onto the lower back” of the student and removed it when the boy started to cry, the complaint states.
Another student told the detective that Rogers stepped on the boy with both feet. Rogers then told the detective “he might have stepped on [the student] with both feet” and admitted to stepping on two other students, too, the complaint states.
Rogers reportedly taught science to the fifth and sixth graders, as well as serving as a wrestling and junior high football coach.
Rogers resigned from his teaching role in April 2025. He could have been sentenced to up to a year in and jail and a $3000 fine, the New York Post reported..
Instead, the Court fined him $2,250 with no jail time. He must also complete an anger management course and perform 90 hours of community service.
Despite Rogers losing his teaching license, his lawyer Daniel Repka said the ex-educator is a “good guy,” the Post noted.
“He made a really unfortunate decision that led to the end of his career, and he just wants to move on,” the attorney said.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
