State Panel Affirms Teacher’s Firing Over Porn Sites

STOCKTON, Calif.—Last week a three-member panel of the state Office of Administrative Hearings affirmed a decision made in 2012 by the Lincoln Unified School District in Northern California to fire a married special education teacher for allegedly using a work laptop to help her boyfriend set up adult websites. The teacher, 37-year-old Heidi Kaeslin, has denied many of the allegations levied against her and has accused her now estranged husband of engaging in a vendetta in retaliation for her affair. According to Recordnet.com, “The panel ruled that numerous files on the Lincoln Unified laptop computer once used by Kaeslin were ‘pornographic,’ ‘lewd and distasteful,’ ‘offensive and vulgar’ or ‘repugnant.’ It found her conduct to be ‘immoral’ and ruled that her activities ‘constituted evident unfitness for service.’ Kaeslin's dismissal was appropriate, the panel ruled, even though she ‘demonstrated satisfactory teaching skills.’” Kaeslin’s options to reverse the ruling are running out. According to the school district, which adopted the panel’s March 29 ruling last Wednesday, she now has until April 26 to request a reconsideration of the ruling and until May 27 to appeal the decision in San Joaquin County Superior Court. According to recent news reports, her attorney has not indicated what she will do. Kaeslin opened up publicly about the situation for the first time a month ago in an interview with Roger Phillips for Recordnet.com. During the interview in her lawyer’s downtown Stockton office, Phillips wrote that she “struggled to maintain her composure” as she described her version of the lead-up to her 2012 dismissal from Lincoln High School in Stockton after working ten years in special education and as a former girls' soccer coach. “On March 19,” wrote Phillips, “Kaeslin conducted what to date has been her only interview on the matter. Sometimes teary-eyed, sometimes angry, she provided her defense in a life-altering saga that has put her future as a teacher in severe jeopardy:    “She said she is the victim of a vendetta by her estranged husband, who was angered by her extramarital affair with a since-retired Lincoln High resource officer, Rich Fields. “She said her involvement in creating illicit websites that never went commercial lasted only a few days. After that brief time spent sorting commercially produced videos into pornographic categories, she decided she didn't want ‘anything to do with adult entertainment.’ “She said she was harmed by a lack of deep knowledge of how and when information is saved on computer hard drives. “She said it is the ‘culture’ in Lincoln Unified for teachers to use district time and equipment for personal business and that she is the victim of a double standard.” At no stage in the four-month process of hearings and subsequent appeal did anyone appear to believe her. “Time and again,” added Phillips. “the written decision refers to Kaeslin's contentions as ‘without merit.’ The panel members did not buy Kaeslin's statement that she was involved for just a few days.” Nor were they influenced by her contention that the only reason she allowed herself to work on the sites at all was as a pretext to continue her affair with Fields. “From Day One," she said, "Rich wanted my help, and we joked about how we're business partners because that was the way that we could have our affair." In the interview, she added that she and her husband are currently “embroiled in divorce proceedings and share custody of their two young children.” Describing the societal shame that has been added to the professional injury brought about by her firing, she also told Phillips, “I can't walk into a grocery store without somebody saying something. I can't go anywhere. I'll get questions like, 'Oh, do you still have custody of your kids?' That's pretty hard as a mom to hear that. ... And I've heard them whisper, 'Oh, yeah, that's the porn teacher.' It's really hard."   According to the Lompoc Record, “The district said it was subject to embarrassment due to the now-defunct websites and other online references to Kaeslin's involvement with them, which officials say lasted from late 2010 until at least April 2011.” But the Daily News reported, “Fields told the Stockton Record he'd bought the domain names with the intention of turning them into profitable websites — but the project was eventually scrapped.” But the paper also reported, “Students told a local TV station that the ‘disgusting’ MySluttyTeacher.com website had an advertisement saying: ‘Have you ever seen your teacher's breasts before? Well now you can see them.’” The site, which may or may not have ever been online, is not live now, darn it. The school district said it has thus far spent about $200,000 prosecuting the case.