A Florida public school teacher under fire for showing a film with a gay character to her young students suggested that parents give up their rights when they send them to public schools.
Jenna Barbee, a Hernando County fifth grade teacher, defended her decision to show her class the 2022 Disney animated film, "Strange World," for an earth science lesson. After parent and member of the school board Shannon Rodriguez complained however, the teacher is now being investigated by the school district and state Department of Education for showing the film with an openly gay character.
Rodriguez said at a recent school board meeting that the film "opens the door" for teachers to have conversations with students that are inappropriate for the classroom.
But Barbee argued that students were already having conversations about same-sex relationships among themselves and on social media and that it would be impossible for teachers to stop them. She said a parent's right to shield their child from LGBTQ conversations is "gone" when that child attends public school.
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"What she’s missing and what these parents are missing, is they’re not in the school system. That just shows me she’s ignorant and has not come and volunteered at all," Barbee said on "CNN This Morning" Tuesday. "These conversations, these doors, they’re open. These students have one to one devices. The amount of things they’re able to pull up that we have to shut down— these conversations, these doors that she’s talking about — that’s telling you I’m stripping her rights as a parent, those rights are gone when your child is in the public school system because there are students talking about these things."
"It’s where they get 90% of the socialization for the day. We can’t shut down every conversation every child has," Barbee insisted.
The elementary school teacher claimed the parent and school board member was targeting her in tandem with Governor Ron DeSantis's effort to rid public schools of "diversity."
Last month Florida's education board approved an expansion of the Parental Rights in Education bill, which bans school employees or third parties from giving classroom instruction on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity." DeSantis signed the bill last year and critics dubbed it the "Don't Say Gay" bill. The law was expanded to apply to K-12 grades.
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"They're trying to strip individuality and diversity to fit one common agenda. It’s ruining everything. It’s not what America stands for," Barbee complained to CNN.
Denying she was trying to "indoctrinate" students, the teacher accused conservative parents and GOP leaders of indoctrinating children to believe LGBTQ relationships were morally "wrong."
"What she’s saying is that we are indoctrinating by showing these things. But actually we’re just showing a representation of our students that are already there. Indoctrinating is going around and telling you, you can’t do all these things. She is pushing the beliefs that all these things are wrong. And that is indoctrinating," the teacher stated while referencing school board member Rodriguez.
Barbee was also on CNN Monday night. She told host Alisyn Camerota that she knew there was a gay character in the film but she didn't think it was a big deal. She said she had "no idea" she might have been violating the state education law.
