Recently, a Florida Biology teacher, Tiffany Shepherd, was fired because she had a part-time job at a business known as Smokin Em Charters. This fishing service hires young women to become "bikini girl mates" who assist men as they pay to go deep-sea fishing. Shepherd claims that she was fired from Port St. Lucie High School because of her second job and pictures of her in a bikini on the Smokin Em Charters website. However, school officials insist that it was not the reason. Instead, they are claiming that Shepherd was absent from her job as a teacher many times, which subsequently warranted her loss of the job.
It seems like young teachers are being fired left and right from their jobs because of their behavior after hours, and it seems that perhaps more teachers need to be more tactful when it comes to their behavior if they want to stay employed. I'm not staying that it was okay for the school to fire her because of her second job, but I'm sure school officials felt pressure from parents because of the controversial situation. It may just be easier for teachers to be aware that things end up on the Internet and that they need to keep their personal lives private.
Every example I've seen of a teacher getting fired for reasons that have nothing to do with his or her job performance stems from people at work finding out about things that they have no business knowing about. Pumpkin, a contestant on Flavor of Love, paid the price for her behavior on the show because she can't substitute teach anymore. School officials told her that she was too distracting to the students and she simply wasn't creating a productive learning environment. Pumpkin has said that she now regrets certain things she did on the show and the fact that she cannot find work is not worth the 15 minutes of fame she got on VH1.
I think that if Shepherd hadn't had pictures of her in a bikini posted on the Smokin Em Charters website, things would not have blown up in the way that they did. But when high school boys have these pictures so easily accessible, it does cause problems at school, which takes away from the professional atmosphere and relationship teachers need to maintain with their pupils. Another idea would be for teachers to find jobs that don't require them taking their clothes off. As a Biology teacher, I'm sure Shepherd could have found another job, but it seemed that the opportunity for so much money was just too good to pass up. Now, she has to deal with finding another full-time job altogether.
In general, I think it may just be easier for teachers to understand that actions like this do cause distractions at school, and when you have teenagers that you have to keep on task, it may be a little difficult to do so with such a controversial second job or contentious pictures/videos on the Internet.
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