A third grade teacher in Wyoming is back in the classroom after a 30-day paid administrative leave over his arrest for strangulation.

Matthew Elliott, a 36-year-old third grade teacher at Colter Elementary, was arrested on Jan. 21 after a “household member” contacted police to report an alleged assault from the night prior, the Jackson Hole News & Guide reports.

The victim allegedly told investigators with the Teton County Sheriff’s Office Elliott lost his temper and “lunged at her and grabbed her by the throat and choked her for approximately 15 seconds.”

“Based on the severity of the marks on the accuser’s neck, deputies arrested Elliott and charged him with strangulation of a household member, a felony,” according to the news site.

Sheriff’s officials allege Elliott initially denied the allegations, but court records show he’s now scheduled for a change of plea hearing for April 6 in the local circuit court, which implies the charges could be reduced to a misdemeanor.

Charlotte Reynolds, spokeswoman for the Teton County School District No. 1, confirmed to the News & Guide that Elliott remains employed and recently returned to teaching after a 30-day paid administrative leave over his arrest.

“He returned on Monday after a 30-day leave,” Reynolds said Thursday.

Elliott’s case comes just weeks after Elliott was featured in a News & Guide article for leading an Engineering Week at Colter Elementary in February. The project, a collaboration between his third-graders, the University of Wyoming and engineering firm Jorgensen Associates – tasked students with building a car using mints, popsicle sticks and straws.

“The activity was to go through the design process that most engineers or designers work through,” said Colter Lane, engineer with Jorgensen, “which is to ask questions, creatively design something and build it.”

Elliott told the news site he welcomed the project because “sometimes scientific inquiry doesn’t get prioritized over other things” in third-grade classrooms.

“I don’t think we ever would have thought of the imaginative ways that they would have used a simple set of materials,” Elliott said. “If I was given a few Lifesavers and popsicle sticks, I might have ate the mints and put the sticks away for something else.”