Teacher Fired Over Kissing Skits – Back In The Classroom

Empty classroom with desks, chairs, windows, and chalkboard.

A Colorado teacher fired for graded “same‑gender kissing” skits is now back in a classroom teaching elementary kids.

Story Snapshot

Fired Denver French teacher Jennifer Honka was unanimously terminated after students said they were pressured to kiss classmates in graded skits.
An administrative law judge found her lessons “irresponsible and inappropriate” and upheld firing for incompetence and neglect of duty.^[3]
Despite that record, she has quietly landed a new job at a Colorado elementary school teaching English language arts.^[4]
Parents now face fresh questions about how woke systems keep moving problem teachers instead of protecting children.

Teacher Fired Over Same‑Sex Kissing Skits

Denver Public Schools board members voted 7–0 on May 20 to fire French teacher Jennifer Honka after a formal investigation and outside review.^[3] She taught French language and culture at Northeast Early College for eight years. Students complained that graded skits in her class included directions for classmates to kiss each other, almost always pairing girls with other girls.^[1] The board cited “incompetence and neglect of duty” as the official reason and held no public debate before removing her from the district.^[3]

District documents and media reports say Honka used scripts titled “The Neighbors Saw Everything” and “The Boring Kiss,” where teen characters were told to kiss multiple times during the scene.^[1]^[3] An independent review found the students chosen for these kissing roles were consistently the same sex, which pushed the classroom into sexual themes instead of language practice.^[3] Students told investigators they felt they could not refuse because the skits were graded and counted toward performance marks in the course.^[1]

Students Say They Felt Pressured, Not Free to Say No

According to coverage of the investigation, some students said Honka enforced a classroom rule that “the answer is always ‘yes’” when it came to participation.^[1]^[3] They understood this as pressure to go along, even when scripts told them to kiss another girl as part of the skit.^[1] One student later joked in a meme that the teacher “makes girls kiss,” but her attendance reportedly dropped after the incident, showing the deeper impact behind the humor.^[1] Another student refused a kissing role and said she received a zero for the assignment.^[1]

Honka has denied forcing any student to physically kiss and told the reviewer she offered alternatives like blowing a kiss or fist bumps for those who were uncomfortable.^[1]^[3] The independent administrative law judge handling the appeal did draw a line between literal force and coercive pressure. He concluded that, even without physical force, the choice of scripts pushed minors to decide about a “personal and sexualized activity” in front of peers, under the authority of a teacher who controlled their grades.^[3] He called her approach “irresponsible and inappropriate” and backed her dismissal.^[3]

Personal Disclosures and Woke Boundaries in the Classroom

The investigation also found that Honka shared intimate personal details with students, including her sexuality, use of a sperm donor, past abuse as a child, fertility struggles, and suicidal thoughts.^[1]^[7]^[11] She defended this as a way to build trust, but at least one student who was already struggling with suicide reportedly left her class afterward.^[1] The judge decided these repeated disclosures of “sensitive and potentially traumatizing information” had little educational value and caused harm, supporting the finding of incompetence and neglect of duty.^[3]^[6]

National guidance on teaching sensitive topics says teachers must keep lessons age‑appropriate, tied to the subject, and not use class time to push personal views.^[18] In this case, the French skits and confessions about sexuality and mental health went far beyond basic language practice. Parents who expect schools to focus on reading, math, and real skills instead see yet another example of activist‑style teaching crossing lines. The Denver ruling shows even a liberal district can admit a woke lesson went too far when outside review forces a hard look at the facts.^[3]^[11]^[20]

Despite Unanimous Firing, Honka Lands at an Elementary School

Despite the unanimous board vote and a clear finding of incompetence, Honka did not leave the classroom for long. A detailed report notes she is now listed as a teacher in the English language arts department at a Colorado elementary school, working with much younger children.^[4]^[5] That new job comes less than a year after she was removed over same‑sex kissing skits and oversharing sexual and mental‑health details with teens. There is no sign from public reporting that the new district has taken action to remove her.^[3]^[4]

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

For parents, this raises a hard question: how many other teachers with serious judgment problems are simply passed to the next school? Federal data already shows discipline and controversy in classrooms are rising, while rules and due process make it slow and costly to remove staff.^[16]^[20] When one district does the right thing after a long legal process, another can quietly hire the same teacher and put children back at risk. That is why many families now demand school‑choice options and stronger local control, so they can walk away from systems that will not defend common‑sense boundaries.