Georgia board upholds firing of teacher for reading book about gender identity to fifth graders
The Georgia Board of Education has upheld the decision to fire a teacher who read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.
ATLANTA — The firing of a Georgia teacher who read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class was upheld Thursday by the Georgia Board of Education.
Katie Rinderle 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 case in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County drew wide attention as a test of what public school teachers can teach in class, how much a school system can control teachers and whether parents can veto instruction they dislike. It also came amid a nationwide conservative backlash to books and teaching about LGBTQ subjects in school.
Rinderle has maintained that the book was about inclusivity. She was fired in August, and filed an appeal the next month.
At their meeting Thursday, the state board voted unanimously to affirm the Cobb County School Board’s decision without discussing it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
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