A fifth grade public faculty trainer in Florida who's underneath investigation by the state Division of Training for displaying her class an animated Disney film with a homosexual character stated Monday that there’s no downside with what she did, including that she didn’t know doing so was “such an enormous deal.”
Jenna Barbee, who teaches in Hernando County’s Winding Waters Okay-8 faculty, was interviewed on CNN about her potential violation of Florida’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” regulation, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed final 12 months and which Disney spoke out in opposition to. The laws prohibits classroom instruction on gender and sexuality in public faculties, and Florida’s state training board voted final month to increase the ban right through highschool.
CNN Tonight anchor Alisyn Camerota requested Barbee if she knew she may very well be committing a violation by displaying the 2022 PG-rated film Unusual World to her earth sciences class.
“I actually had no thought. I had no thought in anyway that this was such an enormous deal. I did not even understand it was an enormous deal till it was dropped at my consideration, as a result of it is simply these college students all have one-to-one units. They speak about this stuff on a regular basis. I've shut down a lot worse at school,” she stated.
“And so, to me, this was only a widespread theme that individuals speak about on a regular basis. My college students speak about it on a regular basis.”
Barbee stated she selected the movie as a result of “that is what we had been studying about in science, truly, on the time. It is the Earth's ecosystems and the way vegetation and animals and life all simply join and develop.” She stated on the time she thought it was “the right film” and “will present them every thing that I've been telling all of them 12 months about respiratory with the timber and choosing up the trash and why we do not kill the bugs.”
In a TikTok submit final weekend, Barbee stated all mother and father had signed permission slips for the film. But it was a type of mother and father, who additionally occurs to be on the Hernando County College District Board, who complained to the principal, CNN reported Monday, citing a spokesperson for the varsity district.
Shannon Rodriguez echoed what DeSantis and different supporters of the regulation have argued: that films like Unusual World “help lecturers in opening a door for conversations that haven't any place in our school rooms.”
In response, Barbee primarily stated Rodriguez was out of her component. “I really feel for her, as a result of she clearly has by no means volunteered within the faculty, particularly at this degree,” she stated. “This door that she’s speaking about—it’s been opened.”
When requested if she would proceed her profession as a trainer, Barbee stated, “not within the public training system” and claimed she was going to “work on a curriculum to create my very own training system, as a result of Florida wants a change. And I wish to be that change. And I am unable to from inside these partitions.”