An English teacher at Hoover High School in North Canton, Ohio has admitted to publishing a raunchy erotic novel under the pseudonym Deena Bright.
The teacher is Carol Ann Eastman, local ABC affiliate WEWS-TV reports. The book is entitled “Schooled.”
According to The Repository, a Canton area newspaper, Eastman’s students are responsible for outing Eastman as the book’s author.
The plot of the novel follows a teacher who has steamy sexual encounters with fellow teachers, as well as former students, to get revenge on her two-timing husband. Several passages are allegedly rich in smutty detail.
“Schooled” garners a solid four stars at Amazon.com — where it’s available as a digital book for $2.99 — but not everyone is begging for more.
Parents complained to the district when they found out about the subject matter of Eastman’s book, and many local parents feel Eastman shouldn’t teach high school English if she also publishes bawdy fiction.
“That’s inappropriate,” opined Sharon Turkall, for example, according to WEWS-TV. “I don’t think I’d write about that whether it was fiction or truth.”
Other parents from the area don’t see the problem.
“What she does on her own time within reason, I guess, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Jim Lehman, of Massillon, according to WEWS.
Eastman, who has been a teacher in North Canton since 2006, was reportedly placed on paid administrative leave for three weeks last month while the school district investigated and pondered its options.
At the conclusion of the investigation, Eastman agreed to a five-day suspension without pay for violating the North Canton City School District computer use policy.
Documents relating to the suspension refer to the computer use violation as “social networking of a personal nature,” says The Repository. It’s not clear whether Eastman’s computer use had anything to do with her erotic novel.
Eastman returned to the classroom Monday.
As The Repository notes, the book’s acknowledgement section contains a “special note” in which the author writes:
“Dear My School District: I love my teaching job. I love raising my kids here, being a part of this close-knit and outstanding community. I am proud to be here, honored and humbled to be a part of this district. Please don’t fire me! I’ve never slept with a student, not even remotely close. I love my students: they’re my kids, nothing more. We teach our students to dream big, work hard, and it will all pay off in the end. This was my ‘dream big.’”