A single mother says she was fired from her job after her coworker reported her TikTok post to school officials

• Nicole Johnson said she was fired after a coworker reported one of her TikTok posts to her boss.

• She joked on TikTok her kids prevented her from going to work early but she still stopped for Starbucks.

• Administrators also thought the common hashtag #FYP meant "F you people" instead of "for-you page."

A single mother said she was terminated from her job in May after her coworker reported one of her TikTok videos as inappropriate to the school's administration.

Nicole Johnson, 30, who was working as a special-education paraprofessional, said in a recent video that a coworker "turned in" one of her TikToks which had been posted to the social media platform on May 14, and showed Johnson drinking from a Starbucks cup. The video's caption read: "Me telling my coworkers there is no way I can come in early cause I have kids, but yet I arrive with a Starbucks daily."

The video had garnered over 165,000 views as of late August.

"I put this TikTok out there, didn't even, like, think anyone was going to do anything with it. I didn't think I could get fired because I didn't think it was unprofessional. It doesn't swear. It's not negative. It's not harassing. It is literally just me being like, 'I can't come into work early, but I have a Starbucks,'" Johnson said in a follow-up video.

Johnson said the coworker who alerted the school's administration knew she was already on a "thin line." Johnson said in a video — since removed — that she was put on administrative leave for three weeks in November for uploading "unprofessional TikToks" and "harassment of a coworker."

"I had never made unprofessional posts previously or been in trouble for my social media over eight years working at the district. And it wasn't until I posted that one post or these posts about my niece for a week, that then were all privated and taken down," Johnson told Insider.

According to Johnson, the "unprofessional TikToks" she posted in November were intended to share the story of her niece, who suffered a traumatic brain injury.

"So basically, I went, and I made a few TikToks because I felt like my sister was trying to work through the situation on her own and it wasn't getting anywhere, so I thought maybe making some awareness about my niece might get us some donations or a lawyer or advice or something that could help us, because it was very hurtful that this was happening to my family," Johnson said.

She said her sister notified her that one of her co-workers was present at the time her niece received the brain injury. Johnson adds that people found out who the unidentified coworker was and contacted human resources, threatening him. Johnson was subsequently put on administrative leave.

"Nothing I shared was private information, so I shouldn't have gotten in trouble for sharing anything because I didn't. " Johnson said. "His place of employment was public information, his job title is public information, his name is public information, his email is public information,  I didn't share any of that, though. I didn't even share his name. I just said where he worked or what his job title was, and people found him."