A former art teacher at Portland High School pleaded guilty Wednesday to a child pornography charge and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Gerald White, 44, of Freeport was arrested at the school in December and charged with possessing sexually explicit material of someone under the age of 12, a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

White appeared before Justice Joyce Wheeler in the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland and waived his right to have the case against him presented to a grand jury.

Wheeler sentenced White to five years, with all but 90 days of that sentence suspended. She also sentenced him to serve six years of probation after his release.

The judge allowed White to remain free on bail until May 12, when he must report to the Cumberland County Jail. The plea deal was reached by agreement by White’s attorney, James Martemucci, and Assistant District Attorney Hannah May.

White was hired in December 2010 as an education technician and became an art teacher prior to the 2013 school year. His contract as a teacher expires in June, but White has been suspended from his post by an agreement with the school since his arrest, Martemucci said.

Acting on a tip, police investigated White and seized his home computer. An initial examination “showed dozens of images of child porn,” according to a statement in December from Maine Public Safety Department spokesman Stephen McCausland, but he said police do not believe any of the images found on White’s computer are victims from Maine.

May said in court that the Maine State Police Computer Crime Lab began investigating White last November after tracing pornographic images of children posted on the Internet to White’s Freeport home.

Investigators executed a search warrant at the home on Dec. 16 while he was not there and seized electronic devices on which they later discovered pornographic images and videos of children, May said.

White was an adviser to the school’s outing club as recently as 2014 and is a registered Maine Guide.

Wheeler also ordered White to register as a sex offender for the next 25 years, have no sexually explicit material and not possess Internet-capable devices. She also ordered him as a condition of probation to have no direct or indirect contact with children under 18 other than incidental contact in public, undergo a sexual abuse evaluation and submit to any necessary counseling.

White declined to comment to a reporter as he left the courtroom after sentencing.