A Florida teacher under investigation because she showed her class the Disney animated movie Strange World, which features a gay character, has defended herself on social media, saying that the film is related to the curriculum and that state investigators were traumatizing her 10 and 11-year-old students.
Jenna Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters school in Hernando County, Florida, released a six-minute TikTok video in which she gave her side of the story.
She said that she had been reported to the local school board by one of her students’ mothers, who sits on the board.
Photo: Reuters
Barbee, who is in her first year as a teacher, said she was reported to Florida Department of Education for “indoctrination” before anyone had even spoken to her.
She is now under official investigation for possibly contravening the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed the “don’t say gay” law, which was introduced by Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last year, and which bans teaching about gender and sexual identity to school students of all ages .
In her TikTok statement, Barbee said she showed Strange World to her fifth-grade class to give them a break after a morning of exams.
Barbee saw the film as directly relevant to the curriculum they were studying on Earth science and ecosystems. She had signed permission slips from the parents of all pupils in the class, giving their approval for showing PG movies.
Disney released Strange World last year. The fictional plot centers on a team of explorers searching for a rare plant that provides energy for their society.
A central character in the animated film, Ethan Clade, who is played by the comic Jaboukie Young-White, is gay. He has a brief crush on another male character.
Barbee said that the sexual orientation of the character had nothing to do with her choice of film: “I have a lot of fifth-grade students who have come to me this year, long before showing this movie, talking about how they’re part of [the LGBTQ] community. It’s not a big deal to me. So I just said, OK, awesome, I’m not pushing anything, just being accepting. That’s what I do.”
Barbee said that as part of the investigation by the state’s education department, her pupils are now being taken out of class one by one to be interrogated by officials.
“Do you know the trauma that is going to cause to some of my students?” Barbee said. “Some of them can barely come and have a conversation with me, and are just getting comfortable with me, and now an investigator is allowed to come and interrogate them.”
On Sunday, the Tallahassee Democrat named the parent and board member who had reported Barbee as Shannon Rodriguez. A member of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty, Rodriguez has been a leader of demands to have books she describes as “smut” and “porn” taken off library and school shelves.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS