May 2, 2024
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia school board voted Thursday to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.
The Cobb County School Board in suburban Atlanta voted 4-3 to fire Katie Rinderle, overriding the recommendation of a panel of three retired educators. The panel found after a two-day hearing that Rinderle had violated district policies, but said she should not be fired.
She had been a teacher for 10 years when she got into trouble in March for reading the picture book “My Shadow Is Purple” by Scott Stuart at Due West Elementary School, after which some parents complained.
“The district is pleased that this difficult issue has concluded; we are very serious about keeping our classrooms focused on teaching, learning, and opportunities for success for students. The board’s decision is reflective of that mission,” the Cobb County district said in a press release.
Cobb County adopted a rule barring teaching on controversial issues in 2022, after Georgia lawmakers earlier that year enacted laws barring the teaching of “divisive concepts” and creating a parents’ bill of rights. The divisive concepts law, although it addresses teaching on race, bars teachers from “espousing personal political beliefs.” The bill of rights guarantees that parents have “the right to direct the upbringing and the moral or religious training of his or her minor child.”
Rinderle is believed to be the first public school teacher in Georgia to be fired because of the laws. None of the board members discussed the decision, but school district lawyer Sherry Culves said at the hearing that discussing gender identity and gender fluidity was inappropriate.
“The Cobb County School District is very serious about the classroom being a neutral place for students to learn,” Culves said at the hearing. “One-sided instruction on political, religious or social beliefs does not belong in our classrooms."
