{"id":28467,"date":"2024-02-23T06:22:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T00:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/georgia-board-upholds-firing-of-teacher-for-reading-book-about-gender-identity-to-fifth-graders\/"},"modified":"2024-02-23T06:22:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T00:52:25","slug":"georgia-board-upholds-firing-of-teacher-for-reading-book-about-gender-identity-to-fifth-graders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/georgia-board-upholds-firing-of-teacher-for-reading-book-about-gender-identity-to-fifth-graders\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia board upholds firing of teacher for reading book about gender identity to fifth graders"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ATLANTA \u2014 The firing of a Georgia teacher who read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class was upheld Thursday by the Georgia Board of Education.<\/p>\n

Katie Rinderle had been a teacher for 10 years when she got into trouble in March for reading the picture book \u201cMy Shadow Is Purple\u201d by Scott Stuart at Due West Elementary School, after which some parents complained.<\/p>\n

The case in suburban Atlanta\u2019s Cobb County drew wide attention as a test of what public school teachers can teach in class, how much a school system can control teachers and whether parents can veto instruction they dislike. It also came amid a nationwide conservative backlash to\u00a0books and teaching about LGBTQ subjects\u00a0in school.<\/p>\n

Rinderle has maintained that the book was about inclusivity.\u00a0She was fired\u00a0in August, and filed an appeal the next month.<\/p>\n

At their meeting Thursday, the state board voted unanimously to affirm the Cobb County School Board\u2019s decision without discussing it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

Cobb County adopted a rule barring teaching on controversial issues in 2022, after Georgia lawmakers\u00a0earlier that year enacted laws\u00a0barring the teaching of \u201cdivisive concepts\u201d and creating a parents\u2019 bill of rights. Rinderle\u2019s attorneys said a prohibition of \u201ccontroversial issues\u201d is so vague that teachers can never be sure what\u2019s banned.<\/p>\n

In its 21-page review, the board found that Cobb County\u2019s policies are not \u201cunconstitutionally vague,\u201d and that her firing was not a \u201cpredetermined outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Georgia law gives either Rinderle or the school district 30 days to appeal the decision in Cobb County Superior Court.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rinderle and the Georgia Association of Educators are suing the district and its leaders for discrimination related to her firing. The\u00a0complaint\u00a0filed last week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, alleges that the plaintiffs \u201chave been terminated or fear discipline under (Cobb\u2019s) vague censorship policies for actively and openly supporting their LGBTQ students.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the months since Rinderle was fired, the Cobb County School District has removed books it has deemed to be sexually explicit from its libraries, spurring debate about what power the district has to make those decisions. Marietta City Schools took similar steps.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s ongoing legislative session has brought with it a\u00a0series of bills\u00a0that seek to cull sexually explicit books from schools, ban sex education for younger students, display the Ten Commandments in classrooms and allow religious chaplains to counsel teachers and students.<\/p>\n

For more from NBC Out,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] ATLANTA \u2014 The firing of a Georgia teacher who read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class was upheld Thursday by the Georgia Board of Education. Katie Rinderle had been a teacher for 10 years when she got into trouble in March for reading the picture book \u201cMy Shadow Is Purple\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}