A US high school teacher had a less than ideal start to the term, when she was discovered drunk and without pants by colleagues on her first day.

Lorie Ann Hill, 49, started her new job at Wagoner High School in Oklahoma on Monday. A colleague discovered Hill setting up the wrong classroom, disoriented and not wearing trousers.

The people who would have been her workmates called police, who arrested Hill for public intoxication.

"She was found in a room kind of disoriented," Police Chief Bob Haley told Tulsaworld .

"By the time we got there she was in a room and wearing shorts."

The woman had reportedly been found a pair of shorts before police arrived, after initially being discovered in her underwear.

Hill admitted that she had been drinking vodka before work, and has been charged with public intoxication.