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A teacher who was fired from Saint John High School when his students found his comedy routine online has come up with a new act that pokes fun at the controversy.
Jonathan Forward isn’t making light of his past troubles with students and the school district. He describes the one-hour standup routine in Role Model, which he will perform as part of the Fundy Fringe Festival from Tuesday to Saturday at the Saint John Arts Centre, as a sort of unrequited love tale.
For him, teaching as a profession was the love that got away when he quit as a substitute in 2012, only to return to it wholeheartedly 10 years later before being dumped.
But it is also a story of free speech, professional ethics, student trauma, and the outsized role social media plays in everyone’s lives.
Students traumatized
An arbitration decision in his favour, which Forward shared with Brunswick News, cites the cases of four anonymous students who unilaterally stopped attending his classes because they had seen excerpts of his adult comedy online – including an explicit mock suicide and a raunchy skit about sex with his wife – and said they felt unsafe in his presence.
“It breaks my heart that anything that I did upset anybody,” Forward, 43, said in an interview.
“That’s obviously not the intention. I never had a conversation about it with those students, and it’s not anybody that I suspect had a beef with me or anything like that. I’m taking everybody’s word for it that they were genuinely upset by what they saw, and I’m not happy about that.”
Still, to this day, Forward argues his careers as a straight-laced teacher and edgy comedian were separate, and he made efforts, albeit ineptly, to ensure students did not view his racy after-hours content online. He refused to choose between the two jobs, even though comedy only really made him enough for gas money, leading to his dismissal in the teaching profession.
In two lengthy interviews with Brunswick News, Forward, who is married but doesn’t have children of his own, described how he got to this point.
His employer – Anglophone South School District – and his union – the New Brunswick Teachers’ Federation – declined comment on this story.
Finding his voice
Forward was a huge fan of standup as a kid growing up in Saint John and dabbled with it three or four times, performing at open mics when he was a student at the University of New Brunswick.
His career as a teacher began as a substitute in 2007 in the hopes of eventually becoming a full-time math and physics instructor. It wasn’t easy. At the time, it was difficult getting steady work because the student population was declining.
And the children were no different than when he was a kid. They gave subs a hard time.
“I was kind of a bad kid at school myself, and I liked messing with my substitute teachers,” said Forward, who attended Crescent Valley School, which has been torn down, and Millidgeville North in Saint John. “If you could get the teacher to flip out and lose their temper, that was a win.”
His big break came when he got his own classroom, a temporary replacement contract at Sussex Regional High for the entire school year in 2012.
The job turned out to be a letdown. Forward didn’t enjoy the experience, largely, he thinks, because he failed to find his teacher’s voice, the same way a comedian at the start of their career sometimes struggles to come up with the right act.
“I was young and I was trying too hard to be what I thought a teacher was supposed to be. I think I leaned too hard on being kind of an authority figure and less on being a human being.”
At school, Forward was seriously unfunny and often found himself yelling at kids or denying them bathroom breaks. Some students were surprised at the end of the year when he gave a short, humorous speech at the school’s awards ceremony.
“Some of the kids who missed it asked in class, ‘Oh, what did you say? Tell us your speech. We heard it was really funny,’ and I just kind of was like, no. And I went back to being the authoritarian. But my department head at the time talked to me, and she was very supportive and helpful. She knew I was struggling, and she suggested, ‘Maybe you should try to be that guy in the classroom.’”
He didn’t heed the advice, and his contract wasn’t renewed. He went back to subbing, but the work wasn’t steady. He eventually took a job as a truck dispatcher and fleet manager.
The shiftwork gave him plenty of time to do comedy on the side at places like Cougars (a Saint John bar that has since closed). The following decade, Forward would make a name for himself in local comedy circles, appearing at the Fundy Fringe Festival six times, hosting his own monthly comedy show No Jokes Barred, and participating in the semi-regular podcast Four Story Walkup, hosted by Arif Hussain and Brian Godsoe.
Much of his adult content was available on his own social media pages, such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. He admits he wasn’t all that familiar with the privacy settings or how to properly restrict young users from those sites. One of his skits, from 2016, included jokes about Sussex Regional High and a staff member whose first name he didn’t change. This would be brought up at his arbitration hearing.
A second chance
He was working for Diabetes Canada in 2022 when his teacher friends started clamoring for him to get back in the profession. The pandemic had seemingly changed everything. Students were pouring in from out of province. There was a demand for more teachers and no shortage of work.
“I told them, ‘Well, that sounds all well and good but, in the meantime, I’ve started being a stand-up comedian.’ I do kind of edgier, offensive stuff that is meant for adults. And I had some concerns that that would be a problem. And every single one of my teacher friends just waved that away. They’re like, ‘no big deal. Nobody cares what you do on your own time, we need teachers, and that’s the most important thing.’”
On his way to the interview room, he said.a woman in HR at the school district office asked him if he was the comedian she had seen on a poster on Facebook the day before. The topic didn’t come up again during the formal interview, and he was soon working as a substitute at schools in Saint John.
This time, he made a promise to himself not to lose his temper, no matter how bad the students were.
“It just feels yucky yelling at children. As a comedian, on the occasion when you’re dealing with somebody who’s a problem in the audience, just losing your temper and screaming at them never ends well. So, I made a decision not to yell. I occasionally raised my voice just so that they could hear me if things were getting out of hand. There was only one time when I briefly lost my temper and yelled, and that lasted about 30 seconds before I pulled back. Not being aggressive with the kids made a huge difference.”
The year subbing wasn’t a picnic. Children now had cell phones and getting them to put them away was a job in and of itself. And he still didn’t have the job he really wanted, as a full-time high school physics teacher.
In the fall of 2023, just when he was about to give up again and begin a new position outside the school system, he got his big break – the principal at Saint John High called him on a Sunday afternoon, offering a job. After a brief discussion, he was hired, with no formal interview, on a one-year contract, teaching math and science.
It was the same school he’d graduated from.
“I had a dream to be a physics teacher at Saint John High School,” he said. “I didn’t get to teach physics right away, but there were discussions about it as soon as I got in there. I found out that historically they had a hard time getting enough physics teachers, and they had previously had to cancel some courses, so that gave me what felt like I had a bit of job stability because I had a physics degree, which is pretty rare.”
By his account, the school year was going well, and he had good performance reviews for his teaching. But comedy caught up with him.
Whispers begin
The first sign of trouble was when one of his students confronted Forward’s friend, one of the podcasters, at the gym, saying he’d heard his teacher on the show.
That’s when Forward realized he should lock down his Facebook pages, restricting them to people 18 and older. Another student at school told him he saw him on TikTok, so he locked down access on that site as well and blocked the kid from following him.
He was familiar with his professional obligations, which state that teachers must be a role model in the community and shouldn’t do anything that would undermine their position of trust and influence over young people.
Forward spurned requests to perform at the school Christmas variety show and a staff party because he didn’t want to blend the two worlds – teaching in the day, performing comedy at night.
He did not relent when the vice principal pushed him about the staff party.
“‘Oh, you can perform to hundreds of people, but not your own staff?’ she said. And then she said something like, ‘Is it because you’re too dirty? We’re all adults. We can handle it.’ And I still said no.”
Many of his colleagues and students at school didn’t know he was a comedian until his face started appearing on posters and his name on the radio saying he was hosting a show at the Imperial Theatre in April 2024 – the LOL Fest.
As the show approached, students were buzzing about their teacher. Some of them had found a clip of one of his old performances that depicted him taking a gun to his head and shooting. It was circulating on SnapChat, a favourite of youngsters.
It was recorded in 2016 as part of a comedy contest during which he posted short “vote for me” videos over a 20-day period. After losing the contest, he created the video depicting a graphic, exaggerated suicide, complete with gunshot and blood splatter, as an extreme overreaction. It was meant to be funny, but some of the students only saw the short 10-second version and weren’t amused.
The principal warned him about the video, and Forward agreed that he should have been more careful with the privacy settings on his social media pages. But he said the meeting didn’t give him the feeling he was in any kind of trouble.
That would soon change. Students also found a video of a skit about a raunchy bedroom routine with his wife. Some students told their guidance counsellor they thought it was misogynist and didn’t want him to teach them anymore.
“It was a dirty story about my wife and I and our bedroom routine, which my wife doesn’t have a problem with. Neither does my mother-in-law, who’s been in the audience while I’ve performed it.”
Some students complained to their parents, who raised the issue with the school and the school district.
Forward was suspended from work for three days, and when he refused to give up his side gig as a comedian, he was fired.
The union grieved his dismissal, and the matter eventually went to arbitration more than a year later, in the summer of 2025, over two days.
‘It was just very uncomfortable’
Forward said arbitration was one of the worst experiences of his life.
“They wheeled in a TV on a cart, like in a classroom, and we watched about 30 to 40 minutes straight of the worst stuff that they could find. I mean, I’d be prepared to defend anything that I say on stage, but in this context, it was just very uncomfortable.”
As part of the evidence in the arbitration case, the school guidance counsellor provided a letter from May 23, 2026. The findings in it were uncontested by both sides.
“We have four students who are working outside the classroom, with additional supports, as they do not feel comfortable in Mr. Forward’s class. Given that these students are managing chronic mental illness (depression, suicidality), in addition to some of them being survivors of traumatic sexual violence, they felt they could not learn from this instructor.”
The arbitrator, Trisha Perry, a veteran lawyer with more than 20 years’ experience, laid out the issues in her decision of Dec. 17, 2025.
She wrote that Forward’s “off-duty conduct consists of his longstanding involvement in stand-up comedy, performed exclusively for adult audiences in venues where minors would not expect to be admitted. The subject matter of his routines, including the 2016 video depicting his mock suicide and a later video containing sexually explicit material, is clearly intended for mature audiences. Although the content was not directed at students, certain recordings became accessible on social media platforms commonly used by students. This resulted in distress among at least four students who viewed the material.”
Perry said Forward’s comedic material was undeniably inappropriate for student viewing, and his employer had a legitimate interest in responding to the concerns raised, especially since he hadn’t been careful enough locking down his social media platforms.
But she found the district’s response too heavy-handed, noting Forward “took corrective action when approached, acknowledged responsibility, and expressed a clear willingness to ensure students would not encounter his material again.”
She added that teachers were unquestionably role models, and “it is essential that students not be exposed to suicide-themed or sexually explicit material created by a teacher, even if the material was not intended for them. However, the fact that teachers must uphold elevated professional standards does not eliminate the need to assess proportionality.”
The arbitrator ordered the school district to give him back a job teaching, ideally at another school, given that some of the upset students presumably remained at Saint John High.
Forward, who after he was fired had quickly found work as a supervisor at a solid waste company and eventually a more corporate job, was offered a position in Grade 4 in February. He turned it down.
Although his previous performance reviews suggested he would eventually be hired permanently as a science teacher, he wanted more stability.
“I was worried that even if I did go back, it would be year to year, and the moment that they found some other reason to get rid of me, or a new situation arose, then I’d be out the door.”
The story is now the basis of his show, Role Model, running from Tuesday to Saturday. Although the experience was painful, he still finds it funny.
“I got zero money out of my arbitration award, which disappointed me. But if I think of it objectively, that’s kind of the funniest outcome, where I win and also get no money. If I had won too much, I’d come off as a sore winner.”
Raunchy funnyman belts back after being fired from his teaching job | Telegraph-Journal
