Fired Over Kissing Skits—Back Teaching Kids

A Colorado teacher fired for “irresponsible and inappropriate” kissing skits with teen girls is now back in a classroom – this time teaching young children in an elementary school.

Story Snapshot

A Denver French teacher was unanimously fired after girls said they felt pressured to kiss classmates in graded skits.
An administrative judge found her use of kissing skits and personal trauma stories was “irresponsible and inappropriate.”^[13]
Despite this, she has reportedly been hired at a Colorado elementary school as a language teacher.^[3]^[10]
Parents now question how districts vet teachers and protect children from adult agendas in the classroom.^[13]

How a Kissing Skit Classroom Ended in a Firing

Denver Public Schools fired French teacher Jennifer Honka after an investigation found she asked students to act out skits that included scripted kissing, usually between girls, as part of graded assignments.^[13] The skits, with titles like “The Neighbors Saw Everything” and “The Boring Kiss,” reportedly called for multiple kiss scenes between student actors.^[3] Several girls later told staff they felt pressured to kiss because the skits counted toward their grade and the teacher enforced a rule that “the answer is always yes.”^[13]

An independent review by a Colorado administrative law judge backed the district’s move to terminate her for “incompetence and neglect of duty.”^[2] The judge wrote that even if students were not physically forced to kiss, the assignments pushed them to make public choices about a “very personal and sexualized activity” while under teacher authority.^[2] One student said she refused to take part and received a zero on the assignment, while another student’s attendance dropped after taking part in the skit and becoming known for a meme saying, “she makes girls kiss.”^[1]^[13]

What Investigators Found Inside the Classroom

The review did not stop at the kissing skits. District documents and local reports say Honka also shared private details with students about her sexuality, use of a sperm donor, fertility struggles, suicidal thoughts, and past abuse as a child.^[7]^[13] She said she was trying to build trust, but the judge and district saw it as “sensitive and potentially traumatizing information” that had little educational value for teens in a language class.^[6]^[13] At least one student already dealing with suicidal thoughts reportedly left her class after these disclosures.^[1]

Parents reading those details can see the bigger pattern many worry about today. Classroom time that should focus on reading, math, and real language learning instead turned into a stage for adult themes, personal trauma, and same-sex kissing scenes. According to reports, some students said they thought they had no real choice because the skits were graded and the teacher had posted the “answer is always yes” rule on the wall.^[13] That combination of grades, public performance, and sensitive content was central to the finding that the classroom environment was coercive, even without physical force.^[2]^[13]

From Firing to a New Job Working With Young Children

Despite the unanimous 7–0 vote by the Denver school board to fire her, Honka has not left the profession.^[2]^[11] Multiple outlets report that she is now listed as an English language development or language arts teacher at Malley Drive Elementary School in Colorado.^[3]^[10] In other words, a teacher removed for conduct involving teenage girls and sexualized skits has moved into an elementary setting with much younger and more impressionable children. Parents in the new district are only now learning why Denver removed her in the first place.^[3]

This raises hard questions that go far beyond one teacher. How did a nearby district decide she was safe to hire in an elementary classroom so soon after an “irresponsible and inappropriate” finding by a judge?^[13] What did the new school know, and what did they ask Denver Public Schools when checking her background? For many families, this looks like the same revolving door they have seen with other problem educators: one district cuts ties; another quietly picks them up, and parents are the last to find out.

What This Case Says About Schools, Values, and Parental Oversight

For many conservative parents, this story hits several sore spots at once: sexualized content in class, same-sex themes pushed on kids, and adults using classrooms to process their own identity and trauma. Honka has said students could choose alternatives like pretending to kiss, blowing a kiss, or fist bumps, and she denies forcing them.^[9]^[13] But the judge still found that the way she set up the lessons put girls on the spot about physical intimacy, and that the educational value was minimal compared to the emotional cost for students.^[2]^[13]

Across the country, parents are pressing school boards to draw clearer lines around what is and is not acceptable with children in class.^[16]^[18] Many believe basic safeguards should not be controversial: no sexualized role-play, no pressure on kids to act out romantic scenes, no sharing of teacher suicide stories or graphic personal trauma with minors. This case also highlights why strong parental rights laws, transparent curricula, and open access to teacher records matter. When families can see what is taught and who is teaching it, they can act before problems reach this level.