A Florida teacher confirmed conservatives’ worst suspicions when she made the outrageous suggestion that parental rights end when their children enter the public school system.
Jenna Barbee, a fifth-grade teacher at Winding Waters K-8 school in Hernando County, north of Tampa, said parents shouldn’t object to her decision to show their children a Disney film featuring an openly gay main character because their “rights are gone when your child is in the public school system.”
Fifth-grade students are typically 10 to 11 years old.
there is a new disney animated film called, strange world, coming out Nov 23. it follows a legendary family of explorers who embark on a journey to a mysterious planet. one of the main characters is Ethan Clade, an openly gay 16 year old & his queerness is integral to his story. pic.twitter.com/3PwovDh3X9
— ak (@VENEFLWRS) November 11, 2022
“What she [a Christian mom who complained] is missing — and what these parents are missing — is they’re not in the school system,” Barbee told CNN on Tuesday. “That just shows me that she’s ignorant and has not come and volunteered at all.”
“These conversations, these doors that she’s talking about — 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.”
Jenna Barbee, a 5th grade Florida teacher, says parental rights end when kids enter the public school system:
“[She’s] telling me I’m stripping her rights as a parent, those rights are gone when your child is in the public school system.” pic.twitter.com/SVN52lCn96
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 16, 2023
In a nutshell, Barbee claimed fifth-graders are already discussing homosexuality, sex and gender identity among themselves so she should expose them to the topics regardless of how parents feel.
This sounds suspiciously like when you rush to tell people your side of a story first in order to influence their opinion before someone else tells a different version of events.
Showing the pro-LGBT movie to fifth-grade students appears to violate Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Educators who break the law could be suspended or lose their teaching licenses.
Cassie Palelis, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education, said an investigator will review the complaint against Barbee, CNN reported Monday.
The controversy erupted last week when Shannon Rodriguez — a Christian mom whose daughter is in Barbee’s class — protested the teacher’s film choice at a May 9 school board meeting, the outlet reported.
“It is not a teacher’s job to impose their beliefs upon a child: Religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, any of the above,” said Rodriguez, who’s also a member of the school board.
“But allowing movies such as this assist[s] teachers in opening a door — and please hear me — they assist teachers in opening a door for conversations that have no place in our classrooms,” she said.
At the board meeting, Barbee responded by taking a dig at Rodriguez’s Christian faith.
“A school board member, an elected official of power who was supposed to be nonpartisan, is allowed to present to the public that she is Christian and that God appointed her to the board. And yet it is ‘indoctrination’ that I showed a Disney movie,” she said.
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