Teacher removed after porn incident

West declined to give a reason for the dismissal, as it is a ‘‘personnel issue.”

On Sept. 10, Onuoha planned to play a DVD on a laptop so that her second period class could listen to the theme music from ‘‘Star Wars.”

Instead, images of two adults engaged in a sexual act were projected onto a screen at the front of the room.

Onuoha quickly ejected the DVD from the laptop, but the images continued to project onto the screen for almost 10 seconds before she powered down the computer.

John White, a spokesman for the county school system, said the laptop was issued by the school system and that the images projected onto the screen were not on the DVD but already on the computer.

The school system will not be releasing any more information regarding the incident, West said.

‘‘The investigation into what actually happened is still ongoing and because it’s a personnel issue, we cannot divulge that information,” West said. ‘‘Personnel information is kept private by [the school system] and we have to respect that.”

Kathryn Holmes Johnson, who has a daughter going into the second-grade at Glenn Dale, said she agreed with the decision to remove Onuoha.

‘‘A more aggressive response as opposed to a more mild response was appropriate,” Holmes Johnson said. ‘‘If a firing occurred, I suppose there was a violation of school policies to the extent that the firing was warranted.”

The school system’s administrative procedures on the use of information technology services state that one of the actions prohibited to all users and web managers of the school district’s network is ‘‘accessing or linking to web sites that contain material deemed vulgar or offensive.”

The entry continues: ‘‘These include, but are not limited to, websites containing any text, graphic, audio or visual representation of sex, acts of perversion, or any vulgar or obscene material, or that contain images or representations of full frontal or partial nudity lacking in any educational, scientific, or artistic value. Users should avoid these websites and should under no circumstances possess any of these materials on their computer.”

Holmes Johnson said she was shocked when she first heard what had happened.

‘‘I think the episode itself was quite surprising,” Holmes Johnson said. ‘‘It’s an unfortunate incident that I think will keep coming up for a number of years. It will be important for us to reinforce the excellence that is happening at our school on a daily basis, especially with our teacher population.”

White said Onuoha had been both a substitute and full-time teacher at Glenn Dale.

She held the position of substitute teacher from May 2006 until mid-August of that year when she was hired as a full-time teacher. She held that position until mid-August of this year when she returned to the position of a substitute teacher.

Attempts to contact Onuoha for this story were unsuccessful.