24-year-old thought she was ‘doing some good for the youth,’ but one comment in her classroom video got her terminated

A substitute teacher in Mississippi got fired after her first day because of a TikTok video she posted. Miata Borders is 24 years old and has around 100,000 followers on the app. She wanted to show people what her day was like at school, but the video ended up getting her in serious trouble instead.

According to Daily Dot, Borders filmed herself walking around the school and standing in an empty classroom. She also recorded students walking through the hallways in what looked like a small parade. At one point she said, “Damn, shorty, sheesh… Man, I gotta get up after these school kids tryna take me down.” A lot of people who saw the video got upset because the word “shorty” can mean someone you think is good looking.

After people started criticizing her on TikTok, Borders made more videos to defend herself. She said she truly just thought she was “doing some good for the youth” and that everyone got the wrong idea. She explained that when she said “shorty,” she just meant the kids were younger and smaller than her. She said she was not trying to flirt with anyone, and people just did not understand the way she talks.

Things went downhill pretty quickly after that

The school district did not waste any time dealing with the situation. DeSoto County Schools told a news station called WREG that they contacted Kelly Services, which is the company that sent Borders to work there. They said she was not allowed to teach at any of their schools anymore. All of this happened right after her very first day working as a substitute.

People on TikTok left tons of angry comments on her videos. A lot of them said she should have known better than to film kids at school. One person wrote, “Saying damn shawty to a student tho,” accompanied by a funny GIF.

Someone else commented, “Filming children who are not your own is universally viewed as inappropriate. Putting them on the internet is next level. I’d expect someone trying to work with children to understand that.” This is not the only time a teacher has gotten into trouble because of what they posted online.

Borders tried to clear things up by posting more explanation videos. She said she only added her voice to the video after she had already left school for the day. She also said most of what she filmed was just her alone in the classroom with no students around.

Borders claimed she had no clue that recording students was against the rules. She said if she had known, she never would have shared the video. She also wanted everyone to know, “I’m by far no predator or anything close to it.”

Things got even worse when Borders said she lost her other job too. She worked as a direct support professional, but that job let her go as well. Even after losing both jobs, she still stuck to her story. She kept saying “my slang and terminology is much different than yours” and that her “intentions were never bad.”

What happened to Borders shows why people need to be really careful about what they put on social media, especially when it involves their job. TikTok trends can be fun, but sharing stuff from work can cost you everything.