Every Saint has a Past and every Sinner has a Future

MICHELLE PAULINO
Opinions Editor

Think of the children. Stacie Halas, an elementary school science teacher from Oxnard, California, used to work in pornography. What nerve! Halas was attempting to make ends meet after being abandoned by her boyfriend and falling into debt. Three years later, she decided to turn her life around and became a teacher.

Out of shame, she never disclosed her naughty past. After teaching for a few years, students and teachers began to stumble onto bits of her past, consequently resulting in her job termination in April 2012. How dare this education system allow her to teach the youth of America about photosynthesis when just three years ago she was-insert sex euphemism because it’s vulgar-on camera. The audacity! Get that woman away from our teenagers before she perverts the minds of our innocent darlings.

In all seriousness, porn is no joke. It objectifies women, perverts the mind and can ruin relationships. However, teachers are people whose lives have not always been concerned with the classroom. Teachers make mistakes, and, unless those mistakes impede their effectiveness of a child’s learning, include illegal activity or are harmful to others, they should be forgiven. In fact, a teacher’s effectiveness should be the primary guiding factor to dictate their employment, not how their dirty laundry may become the brunt of every thirteen-year-old’s joke.

After a failed appeal, Halas has until Feb. 13 to once again appeal for her job back in the classroom. Is such redemption possible? Does this sinner have a future?