Teacher Speech and the New Divide: Katie Rinderle
In the eighth and final episode of our series on Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we talk with Katie Rinderle, a 10 year veteran educator from Cobb County, Georgia. Katie is the first teacher in Georgia to be terminated for violating the state's divisive concept laws. What did Katie do? She went to a school book fair, sponsored by her school, and bought the best selling picture book, My Shadow is Purple, which touches on gender identity. Her 5th grade students selected the book for a read aloud, and Katie read the book and invited her students to do a reflection poem. Then, a parent complained, and Katie was fired. Katie's case has garnered national attention as a test of what public school teachers can and can't teach in the classroom. We’re joined in our conversation with Katie by her attorney, Michael Tafalski, from Southern Poverty Law Center. Special thanks to our friends at Learning for Justice, and the Justice in Schools team at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for their collaboration on this work.