Teacher Out Of Job After X-Rated Video Surfaces
from the AP
(PADUCAH, Ky.) — A teacher in western Kentucky has been suspended and will not have her contract renewed after administrators found out she appeared in an adult movie more than a decade ago.
Tericka Dye, a science teacher and volleyball coach at Reidland High School in Paducah for the last two years, was suspended Wednesday and told she would not return to the classroom in the fall.
"Your presence in the classroom would cause a disruption to the educational process," McCracken County Schools Superintendent Tim Heller wrote in a letter to Dye. "I fear there would be less than a serious approach to schooling by students who viewed the video or know about it."
Dye said she suffers from bipolar disorder and agreed to appear in the 1995 flick because she had no home or income and her disease wasn’t being treated. Dye said she spent one day in Los Angeles filming the movie and did not use her real name.
"I absolutely 100 percent regret doing that," Dye said. "I’ve always tried to look ahead and not focus on it. But I wasn’t diagnosed at the time."
Dye later joined the Army and served in a military police unit at Fort Lewis, Wash., before going to college and becoming a teacher.
Some parents, such as Bonnie Chilcoat of Reidland, supported Dye. Chilcoat took her daughter, Nicole Genel, out of school to attend an impromptu rally Wednesday for the suspended teacher.
"She’s not the person she was 10 years ago," Chilcoat said. "We’ve all done things that we regret, except hers is on tape."
Mark Blankenship, a Murray attorney hired by the Kentucky Education Association to represent Dye, said the superintendent’s decision may be challenged.