Who is Joanna Herring? McArthur High teacher fights termination after showing lewd images to students and racist remarks

Joanna Herring, a language arts teacher at McArthur High School in Florida, has been terminated from her role after she received several complaints. The high school teacher was reportedly terminated earlier this month for showing students some lewd images.

As per parents and officials, the teacher showed the kids a male private part-shaped gum wrapper and claimed that it was a “generous gift” from a freshman from the previous session. The teacher has also been reported for yelling at her students, being late for classes, and passing racist comments to the kids.

Many parents have also complained about her not being present during parent-teacher conferences. Furthermore, the school authorities have mentioned that Herring is often late in posting the students’ grades.

Herring currently has a license in Professional Educator Certificate, English 6-12, and ESOL from the State of Florida.

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Joanna Herring has a degree in Political Communications and Telecommunications

Joanna Herring is 56 years old and has worked at McArthur High School since 2007. The teacher also served the role of a Teacher Assistant at Broward County Public Schools. While she had this job for more than four years, she also explored other fields as a research assistant at Florida Atlantic University in 2001.

With her bachelor's degree in Telecommunications from the University of Florida, Joanna has completed her Political Communication degree at George Washington University. Prior to this, she completed high school from South Plantation High School. Besides this, she has also been an Assistant Troop Leader at the Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida for roughly 10 years.

The Sun Sentinel reported that Herring had also been suspended for three days previously in 2019. This was due to excessive absenteeism, including failure to attend faculty and department meetings and not adhering to emergency Code Red lockdown procedures.

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Joanna Herring pleaded “not guilty” as she filed a petition to get her job back

After Joanna Herring was terminated, she appealed to the Division of Administrative Hearings to get her job back. Additionally, reports claimed that she filed a petition for the same on Friday, December 23, which stated:

“No cause exists for the termination of Respondent’s employment by the Broword County School Board.”

Although it is reported that the high school teacher has denied all the allegations in her petition, Herring is being represented by the Broward Teachers Union. Reports claim that she was receiving a salary of more than $50,000 at the school.

On the other hand, McArthur High School spoke to several students, and a few of them exclaimed that Joanna Herring made racist remarks about a lot of black students. One of the students said:

“When the school year first started she kept speaking on black people. How her family is racist and when they came down to Miami/Broward they told her there were 'too many black people.'"

Meanwhile, the school also reported that lodged complaints against the teacher entails that she has been terminated for the year 2021-2022.