Officials not so hot for teacher

EDUCATION.

Stacie Halas, an eighth-grade science teacher at Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard, Calif., was fired after students found pornographic videos of her on the Internet.

The videos were reportedly made six years ago in San Diego, before she ever joined the district.

Halas defended her actions at administrative hearings in an attempt to keep her job as a teacher at the public school.

When asked by Salas’ attorney Richard Schwab about her first hardcore porn shoot, Salas, with tears in her eyes, said she felt dirty, that she’d let herself down and that it just wasn’t her. Months after the initial shoot, Halas left the industry in shame.

Halas should be allowed to keep her job; her past never impacted her ability to be an effective teacher. Salas entered into the adult industry under dire circumstances, looking for a quick buck to ease the financial pain her family was facing. After dealing with the moral dilemma of participating in this industry, Salas went on to dedicate her life to a noble career in education and should have the chance to continue.

It seems as though Oxnard school officials are more worried about their district’s reputation than the quality of education their students receive.

Past history should not bar a teacher from educating students, unless it involves of crime or physical pain to children. Beyond this, it is no one’s business what teachers have done previously in life.

“I think most of us have something in our backgrounds,” Schwab told an NBC news reporters in Los Angeles after the hearing. “And I ask anybody here to cast the first stone.”