High School Teacher Claims She Was Fired for Being Part-Time "Bikini Girl" Waitress on Charter Boat

Tiffany Shepherd, a biology teacher at Port St. Lucie High School, learned last week that she will not be asked to return when school starts next year, nor will she finish this school year.

Shepherd doesn't think it's her teaching skills that the St. Lucie County School District found objectionable but, rather, her after-school job as a bikini mate aboard Smokin' Em Charters fishing tours.

As such, Shepherd, a 30-year-old buxom blonde from Fort Pierce with an undergraduate degree in pre-med, performs the usual duties of a mate, but wears a bikini and fetches drinks and sandwiches for the men on board.

It's a job she took three weeks ago to help support her three young sons following a divorce, something she says is difficult to do on a teaching salary.

"I can make $600 in two days (fishing)," she said. "That's a week's pay for me in two days."

Smokin' Em Charters, a Port St. Lucie-based company, gained notoriety earlier this month when it was kicked out of the Fort Pierce city marina for violating the city's family-friendly atmosphere. The charter company's Web site has pictures of some of the bikini mates, many of them partially nude, and says the only job requirement is to look "hot in a bikini."

Shepherd, who said she does not go topless on the fishing boat, said she doesn't believe the job is inappropriate or at odds with her role as a teacher to high school students. Suggestive photographs of her are online, but with a disclaimer saying they should not be viewed by children under the age of 18, and her job on the boat requires her to wear no more or less than she might on any public beach, she said.

"You don't wear jeans or slacks to go fishing," she said. "I wasn't doing anything wrong."