Former SC principal accused of sex with student pleads guilty to reduced charge
An award-winning former South Carolina charter school principal accused last year of having sex with a student will be spared jail time under a plea agreement he reached with prosecutors.
Kalan Rogers, 32, received a two-year sentence suspended to time served and 18 months probation after pleading guilty Dec. 1 to second-degree assault and battery, a misdemeanor, records show.
Rogers’ attorney declined comment when reached by a reporter.
The felony sexual battery with a student charge he had faced was dismissed in exchange for the plea, a spokesman for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office said.
Rogers, who surrendered his teaching license as part of the deal, can terminate his probation early if he pays a $1,000 fine plus costs and assessments, or a total of $2,266, according to sentencing documents.
The former educator served as principal of Calhoun Falls Charter School from 2018 until his resignation this past June.
A Spartanburg County grand jury indicted Rogers in October 2024 on charges that he performed oral sex on a 17-year-old student more than seven years earlier while teaching and coaching at Union County High School.
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 came under investigation in November 2023 after the Abbeville County Sheriff’s Office received a report that he was being blackmailed by a former student with whom he’d had a relationship.
The complainant told authorities that Rogers had sent thousands of dollars to the former student and was also sending money to multiple current “young male athletes” at Calhoun Falls Charter School.
The attorney general’s office took on the principal’s case, believing it could involve multiple jurisdictions, but ended up securing charges only in Spartanburg County.
Rogers continued working at Calhoun Falls Charter School during the pendency of the criminal probe and for nearly nine months after he was charged, before resigning at the end of June, records show.
An investigation by The State found that for much, if not all of that time, he continued performing his duties as principal, and spent at least eight of the 15 months after the allegations surfaced working in the school without any restrictions.
Rogers, a 2012 graduate of Calhoun Falls Charter School, was a well-known figure in the small town Abbeville County community at the time of his arrest.
After spending his first two years out of college teaching physical education and coaching track in Union County, he returned to his alma mater as principal in 2018, at the age of 24.
In 2021, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools named Rogers one of its “30 under 30 Changemakers,” noting in a press release that in addition to serving as principal, he was a coach, bus driver and advocate for his students, parents and the community.
This story was originally published December 16, 2025 at 1:11 PM with the headline "Former SC principal accused of sex with student pleads guilty to reduced charge."