Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Schools are turning on the lights and the air conditioning as they reopen for the 2023-24 year.
Unfortunately, some are also turning back the clocks.
The country is witnessing a politically driven retreat by schools from honest accounts of American history and from acceptance of LGBTQ+ students. New laws on avoiding “divisive concepts” are causing schools to shy away from books and content that address race, racism and sexuality.
Conservative legislatures intent on earning street cred with far-right voters have adopted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ playbook, enacting laws that deliver a message to schools and teachers that books, lessons and discussions about race and racism should be avoided. Nor should schools accommodate or even acknowledge students who are grappling with gender identity.
Classrooms are becoming minefields where teachers risk the explosion of their careers over assigning books that depict racism and white privilege or that encourage acceptance of different gender norms.
How crazy is it out there? Florida teacher Jenna Barbee, who resigned this spring, showed her fifth-grade class the Disney movie “Strange World” following standardized testing. The movie has a gay character, which led to Barbee being investigated by the state and berated by a school board member whose child was in her class.
Barbee says she chose the 2022 Disney film because it deals with ecosystems and the environment, which the class was studying. But parent Shannon Rodriguez, who is in her first year as a Hernando County school board member, said the presence of a gay character in the Disney film stripped “the innocence of my 10-year-old.”
A Miami-Dade school, in response to a parent’s complaint, restricted elementary-age students’ access to “The Hill We Climb” by poet Amanda Gorman, who read the uplifting poem at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. In response to the same parent, the school also denied young students access to “The ABCs of Black History,” even though the book is aimed at children kindergarten age and up.
Not only is Black Lives Matter taboo in many school districts but now Black history, including the truth about slavery, is under fire. Revised 2023 academic social studies standards in Florida now state on Page 6: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
In Georgia, a teacher is fighting termination for reading a bestselling children’s book that encourages acceptance of gender differences. Katie Rinderle appears to be the first Georgia teacher to face termination under the 2022 suite of laws designed to mute class discussions of anything that would discomfort a 1950s Baptist sewing circle.
Even beloved icons and rainbows are not safe. A Wisconsin administrator nixed the Dolly Parton/Miley Cyrus duet “Rainbowland” from a first-grade spring concert, allegedly saying the song could be perceived as controversial. The song’s only offense seems to be its mention of rainbows: “Every color, every hue/Let’s shine on through/Together, we can start living in a Rainbowland.”
After Wisconsin teacher Melissa Tempel vented her dismay on social media over the censoring of the song, the district suspended her and then fired her last month.
Tempel said she plans legal action because she does not want to become a cautionary tale that American teachers must remain silent because of fear of reprisals.
“And I really don’t want that to be the narrative, I want the narrative to be that I spoke out because I knew that this was wrong, and I really want my students to have the best,” she said in a recent statement. “I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with any of the things that I’ve said, or any of the things that I do in my classroom. So, I’m going to fight it as much as I can.”
Let’s hope Tempel wins her fight. Otherwise, schools won’t be safe for teachers or students.
Maureen Downey is a columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
