May 15, 2023

A Florida teacher under investigation for "indoctrination" after screening the "strange world" for her fifth grade class.

The Florida Department of Education is investigating one of its teachers to show the strange world of Disney in her fifth grade while children take a break during standardized tests.

Who is the teacher - Jenna Barbee, a 1st grade teacher at Winding Waters School in Hernando County, Florida. On Sunday, Barbee released a 6-minute Tiktok video explaining the situation that led to the investigation.

What are the complaints – According to Barbie, she is accused of "indoctrination" and possible violations of parental rights in the Education Act, a law commonly known as "Don't say gay" which was introduced by Governor Ron Desantis last year. The law prohibits teaching students in schools about their gender or sexual identity. The film Strange World features a teenage character named Ethan Clade who is gay and in love with a male character named Diazo. The complainant told the board of Education that "Allowing films like this will help teachers open the door, listen to my voice, they will help teachers open the door for conversations where there is no place in our classroom.""

Where did the complaint come from - Barbee was reported to the local school board by the mother of a student who was in attendance when the film was screened. Barbee says the mother of a student who recently joined the school board is "on a rampage to remove all forms of expression from our school," and she has visited numerous schools in the district to force teachers to "remove whatever had to do with expression."

Who is Mom- According to Florida publication The Tallahassee Democrat, a member of the school board is Shannon Rodriguez, a member of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty, who has publicly spoken out in favor of removing books she believes are pornographic from school libraries. At a school board meeting about Barbee's investigation, Rodriguez said, "It is not a teacher's job to impose on a child a belief in religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any of the above."

Why Did Barbee Choose Strange World - Barbee says she chose the film because her students were studying earth science and ecology. All Florida Education Sith

She had foreseen no problems-At the beginning of the year, parents of all fifth graders were asked to sign a permit that would allow teachers to screen PG-rated movies in the classroom. According to Barbie, each of her students got permission from their parents, except for one person who said their child could not watch the Pixar movie Lightyear. That student was not in the classroom the day Strange World was screened, so Barbee already had the blessing of the parents of the rest of the students, so she felt it was clear to show the film, she also said that the presence of a gay character in the film did not show any kind of agenda and objected to the numerous on-screen kisses shared by the straight characters in the film. "I'm not going to be able to do that," he said.

What's Happening Now - In her Tiktok video, Barbee says the School board is pulling her students out of class one by one to ask them questions about screening. This seems to be Barbie's single biggest objection to the whole situation. "Do you know the trauma caused to some of my students-" Barbie asks in the video. "Some of them can barely come and converse with me and are comfortable with me, but now the investigator can come and interrogate me," he said.

The Big picture: If any, the impact of this investigation on the ongoing feud between the Walt Disney Company, its CEO Bob Iger, and the Governor of Florida is unclear. However, as the conflict has intensified, neither side has avoided using available ammunition. More recently, Iger suggested during his company's Q2 earnings call that if DeSantis continues his crusade against the company, Disney World might drop plans to invest the next 1.7 billion and create 13,000 new jobs in the state over the next five years.