A Georgia school district fired a veteran teacher after parents balked at her reading a picture book about gender identity to a class of fifth graders.
The Cobb County School Board voted 4-3 Thursday to terminate Due West Elementary’s Katie Rinderle, who’s been teaching for 10 years — overruling a panel of retired educators who said even though she violated district policies, she should not be fired, according to 11 Alive.
After the March class reading of “My Shadow Is Purple,” a book that discusses gender identity and centers on a non-binary character, parents of Rinderle’s 10- and 11-year-old students were angry.
The concern triggered a new state law placing restrictions on how grade school teachers can discuss race and other topics in the classroom.
Rinderle’s lawyer Craig Goodmark, however, argued teachers across the state had barely been informed about what is now legal under the state’s new law against “divisive concepts” — topics that require parental consent before being taught in classrooms.
“She’s disappointed that it went this way, especially after two days of hearings, and she still doesn’t know what’s controversial, what’s divisive or what’s sensitive,” Goodmark said, the news outlet reported.
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