A Parkway North High School science teacher has been placed on administrative leave and will not return to her job after disclosing she had worked in pornographic films before becoming a teacher, according to school district officials.

The teacher, Tera Myers, requested the leave Friday after a student approached her about her past, according to the district. Previously, Myers had been suspended from a Kentucky school district for similar reasons.

"Out of respect for her privacy and that of her family, the district has agreed to accept the teacher's request to be placed on administrative leave for the remainder of the school year," a Parkway news release said. Myers will be paid through the end of the school year.

Myers was hired after passing standard background and reference checks, according to the district. A Parkway spokesman said Tuesday that because the teacher's involvement in the porn industry did not break any laws, it wasn't revealed in the background checks.

The spokeswoman said Wednesday Parkway had called Myers' previous school in vetting her and that the district had had no idea of the teacher's previous suspension or the reasons for it.

Myers could not be reached for comment.

Myers, 38, was in her fourth year of teaching in the district. She also had served as a girls volleyball coach at the high school.

In 2006, she was suspended from Reidland High School in Paducah, Ky., after a student obtained a copy of an X-rated film she was in and showed it to other students. At the time, Myers went by the name Tericka Dye.

She decided to fight her suspension and reapply for her job. News coverage at the time showed support from teachers and parents, as well an emotional plea from Myers, but her contract was not renewed.

"Anybody who's been in my classroom can tell you how much I love teaching and how much I love these students, and that should be what matters more than anything that I've done in my past," she told reporters.

Later in 2006, Myers told her story on the "Dr. Phil" television show, informing the popular psychologist that she had appeared in her first porn film at the age of 22, while a homeless mother of two, according to the "Dr. Phil" website.

"Doing pornographic material has ruined my teaching career and my life," she said, according to the website. "I was broke and wound up meeting some strippers who introduced me to stripping. I was making a lot of irrational decisions, porn only being the worst."

Myers, who later earned a bachelor's degree from Murray State University in Kentucky and at one point served in the Army at Fort Lewis, told Dr. Phil McGraw that she suffered from bipolar disorder and that when she did the films, she was exhibiting erratic behavior.

"I was not who I am today," she said. "I've gotten on medication. I've found God. I've gotten an education. I've done everything I could possibly do to prove that I'm a different person now. ... As a teacher, I can exemplify what it means to change."

Myers told McGraw that her reviews as a teacher had been 'superior" and that she missed teaching.

"I just don't understand how you can take a teacher who has put so much into it and suspend them for something that is 11 years in the past," she said, according to show's website. Myers' Parkway North Web page had yet to be taken down Tuesday. It made no mention of her situation. But on it was a Bruce Lee quote she had appeared to post: "A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence."

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Note: This story was updated Wednesday to reflect that Parkway called to verify Myers' prior employment history. A prior story said a Parkway spokesman was "almost positive" that occurred.