Parental Nightmare: Fired Teacher Quietly Rehired

A teacher presenting to students in a classroom

A Colorado teacher fired for graded “kissing skits” is now teaching elementary kids, and the system that let that happen is the real story.

Story Snapshot

Denver fired French teacher Jennifer Honka after a judge said her classroom skits pressured girls to kiss each other
The school board’s vote to terminate her for “incompetence and neglect of duty” was unanimous, with no public debate
Within months, she resurfaced on staff at a Colorado elementary school teaching young children
This case exposes how background checks, discretion, and vague “professional standards” can fail parents and kids

A unanimous firing, then a quiet comeback

Denver Public Schools did not shrug this off as a misunderstanding; they ran a full investigation, an outside review, and then fired French teacher Jennifer Honka for “incompetence and neglect of duty” in a 7–0 board vote.^[4] The judge who reviewed the case agreed her classroom conduct harmed students and lacked educational value.^[4] Yet before most parents outside Denver even heard her name, she had already landed at another Colorado school, now listed as an elementary English language arts teacher.^[1]Parents who assume “the system” weeds out problem adults are learning that is often wishful thinking, not policy.

What really happened inside that French classroom

This was not a one-off awkward joke. For years, students in Honka’s French class performed biweekly graded skits with titles like “The Neighbors Saw Everything” and “The Boring Kiss.”^[2] Scripts called for multiple on-stage kisses, usually between girls, while classmates watched and grades were on the line.^[2] One student said Honka enforced a rule in class: “the answer is always ‘yes,’” which many took as pressure to go along even when uncomfortable.^[2] Another student refused and reported getting a zero.

Coercion without force is still coercion

The administrative law judge cut through the word games. He wrote that even if Honka did not physically force students to kiss, her choice of script “forced them to express their preferences and consent about a very personal and sexualized activity on the spot in front of their peers.”^[3] When a graded assignment asks minors to act out romantic contact—same-sex or otherwise—under a teacher’s authority, there is no real “free choice.” That is not language learning; that is adults playing with boundaries kids cannot safely defend.

The teacher’s defense versus common sense

Honka’s defense has two main pieces: she says students were never forced to kiss and could blow a kiss or fist bump instead, and she claims personal disclosures about her sexuality, fertility struggles, and mental health built trust.^[2] The record, though, shows students felt pressured, at least one student’s attendance collapsed after the skits, and a student struggling with suicide left her class.^[2] A unanimous board, backed by a judge, concluded her conduct did not serve the best interests of children.^[2] That lines up far more with parental instincts than her “it was optional” story.

From middle school controversy to elementary classroom

This is where the story shifts from one teacher’s judgment to the system itself. After all that—investigation, judge, board vote—Honka did not leave education. She moved districts. A local report found her listed as an English language arts teacher at a Colorado elementary school soon after her firing.^[1]^[5] That means younger kids, even less able to push back, are now under the care of an adult another district found unfit to manage teen boundaries in a foreign language class.^[2] Parents were never truly in that loop.

Why the pipeline keeps failing parents

School discipline today is heavy on process—investigations, hearings, lawyers—but light on simple guardrails every parent would expect.^[20] Districts often treat moral judgment like a legal liability, not a duty. As long as there is no criminal charge, a teacher can slide to the next job, because paperwork rarely shouts a clear warning. Conservative values say adults who mishandle kids’ sexual boundaries should lose access to other people’s children, not just change buildings. The system usually says, “Move along.”

What this signals about control of the classroom

Nationally, courts and policies have stretched student “rights” while narrowing teacher authority on discipline, yet somehow leave huge blind spots on adult behavior.^[20] Groups allied with unions tell teachers to clear “sensitive topics” with administrators and keep lessons age-appropriate and aligned with standards.^[18] But none of that helps parents if the adults who ignore those norms face little more than a transfer. When a district and a judge both say a teacher’s conduct was “irresponsible and inappropriate,” and another school still hires her, the message is simple: the gate is open, and your kid is the test case.

Jennifer Honka, a French teacher at Northeast Early College (Denver Public Schools), was fired May 20, 2026 after a unanimous board vote.

An independent administrative law judge found she assigned graded skits requiring students (mostly girls) to kiss each other and shared…

— Grok (@grok) June 22, 2026

Parents who care about protecting kids cannot assume vetting works. They must ask their district, in writing, what happens when a teacher is fired elsewhere for boundary violations, and whether those records are actively checked. They should demand that any educator removed for sexualized classroom activity, even “non-physical” pressure, is flagged in hiring systems. If schools will not draw a hard line, families must force them to, before another “kissing skit” teacher quietly shows up in the elementary wing.