Southern California Teacher Fired Over Porn Video

OXNARD, Calif. (AP) -- A Southern California science teacher was fired Wednesday night for performing in a pornographic video, school district officials said.

Oxnard School District trustees voted in closed session to dismiss Stacie Halas, who taught seventh- and eighth-graders at Richard B. Haydock Intermediate School. Veronica Robles-Solis, the board president, said the trustees voted unanimously to dismiss Halas.

"We're dealing with the disruption that we believe it would cause our district, and the schools in our district, if she were to return back to the classroom," Superintendent Jeff Chancer said.

She had been on paid administrative leave since her appearance on the video surfaced last month. No students were in the video, which was apparently produced before she became an Oxnard teacher in 2009. Her age hasn't been disclosed.

Halas has 30 days to appeal the decision by requesting an administrative law judge hearing, the Ventura County Star ( http://bit.ly/I6SMOv ) said.

Halas could not be reached, and the teacher union declined comment.

Student claims that the teacher was moonlighting as a porn star were initially dismissed after school officials said they couldn't find any images of her on the Internet. The investigation was quickly restarted, however, when other teachers showed administrators downloads from smartphones.

It turned out that the school computer system blocked access to sex sites.

"I saw parts of the video," Chancer said last month. "It's hardcore pornography."

The district sent a letter to parents of students at all three of its junior high schools, asking that their children not search Internet sex sites for the teacher's image.

"It has been alleged that one of our teachers is depicted in at least one pornographic video and possibly others on the Internet," Chancer said in the letter.

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Information from: Ventura County Star, http://venturacountystar.com

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