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.
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.
Resources and Links
Georgia Teacher Fired for Reading Children’s Book About Acceptance - SPLC Article
Katie Rindele’s Opinion piece on MSNBC
Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest Press Release on Katie’s Case
Learn more about My Shadow Is Purple and Author Scott Stuart
Pre-Order Justin Reich’s new book Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools
Watch our documentary film We Have to Do Something Different
Transcript
https://teachlabpodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/teacher-speech-e8/transcript
Credits
Host Justin Reich
Produced by Aimee Corrigan and Garrett Beazley
Recorded and Mixed by Garrett Beazley
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Follow our host Justin Reich on Twitter
Katie Rinderle: Censorship negatively impacts the overall quality of education. It denies students their freedoms. It denies students their rights. It truly creates this hostile learning environment that is not good for anybody. And these intentionally vague laws are written in a way that I feel like are living out their intended purpose.
Justin Reich: From the MIT Studios of the Teaching Systems Lab, I'm Justin Reich, and this is TeachLab, a podcast about the art and craft of teaching. It is the eighth and final episode in our series on Teacher Speech and the New Divide. Teacher speech has come under fire, under attack as very few times in American history in the last few years. It has been painful to teachers, been challenging to teachers, been chilling to teacher speech. We're trying to understand it.
We're trying to understand new laws. We're trying to understand old court cases. We're trying to bring it all together so that you can understand both how to navigate these difficult times, but also what we can all do, teachers, educators, citizens to imagine better futures that protect teacher speech. And we're bringing our final story today about divisive concept laws and it is a doozy. We're going to be talking today about and with Katie Rinderle.
She's a 10-year veteran educator from Cobb County, Georgia in outstanding elementary, a well-regarded elementary school teacher there. Her attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mike Tafelski, who has been working with her since Katie's termination. Katie is the first teacher in Georgia to be fired for violating the State's divisive concept laws. She went to a school book fair, sponsored by her school, bought the picture book, My Shadow is Purple.
She offered a series of books to her class one day to read. Her students picked My Shadow is Purple. She read the book. They wrote a reflection poem. Afterwards, 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 class. Amidst a nationwide conservative backlash to books and teaching about LGBTQ subjects in schools. I want to start our investigation of this case where we start a lot of issues in TeachLab, which is really about craft, about pedagogy and about teaching. So, I asked Katie if I had been a student in her classroom in 2019, pre-pandemic, pre-divisive concept laws, pre-the latest wave of book bands, what would I have seen in her classroom during a read-aloud?
Katie Rinderle: I always engage students with a morning read-aloud. So, that really has been part of the start of my day for as long as I can remember as a teacher. So, when I was selecting books, I was always very mindful of selecting texts that were reflective and relevant to my students, truthful to their histories and to the experiences that they had and brought with them.
And then, also looking for texts that propelled my students in thinking critically and being able to provide them an opportunity, engage with one another in an open discussion to really learn from one another and their funds of knowledge.
Justin Reich: Listening to Katie talk about her design, her execution, it's obvious that she is a master of her craft and all the more incredible that one incident, one book reading led her to get fired. To understand that, we have to understand a little bit more about the context, and so we need to talk with Mike Tafelski, who is a lawyer from the Southern Poverty Law Center, has kids in Cobb County, and I asked him to explain to us Georgia's three divisive concept laws.
So, Michael, over the course of a few years, Georgia starts passing a series of divisive concept laws. Can you walk us through the laws that the State of Georgia passed that impact the kind of teaching that teachers like Katie are doing?
Mike Tafelski: So, as we saw through the pandemic, the political attacks on public education really heightened. And we saw those attacks on teachers and we saw those attacks on students and they were being driven by lawmakers. And we saw that up close and personal here in Georgia where three laws were passed during the legislative session in 2022. And then, ultimately signed into law by Governor Kemp and then began to be enforced really during the '22-'23 school year was the first year that those laws were being operationalized in the schools. And those three laws were the divisive concepts law, which placed restrictions and prohibitions on what educators could discuss regarding race and racism and the history of systemic racism and oppression in this country.
The second law was the Parental Bill of Rights law, which really didn't put a mandate specifically in the law on teachers, but said that parents have the right to direct the upbringing and moral religious training of their children. It gave parents the right to review instructional materials in the classroom. And then, the third policy was the harmful to minor's policy. And that created a complaint resolution policy that would allow districts to respond if they received a complaint about school materials containing sexual content, nudity and a few other categories. So, those three collectively together then we have called them a trio of censorship laws because they were intentionally designed to be vague and really create a culture of fear and self-censorship among teachers.
And because they were written so vaguely, districts were unable to really give direction or training to educators about how to enforce them. So, what districts then began doing is essentially just they were required to develop policies and so they just cut and paste the law and put it into their policy. But there wasn't any training or support or really analysis that was given on how you need to implement these laws into policies on a day-to-day basis. And so, without that training, you've got teachers then who are stepping into the classroom and are having to make those decisions themselves.
And there's a variety of factors then that are weighing on teachers about how they decide that they are going to interpret those laws and policies and then also implement them in their classrooms. And that really creates a mess across the state about how our kids are accessing curriculum and it's harmful to our students and it's been harmful to our schools as a whole.
Justin Reich: What kind of advice did the Georgia State Education Agency publisher offer as these laws have been passed? Because the way that education systems often work on all kinds of topics is that legislatures pass laws and those laws often don't specify exactly how everything will be worked out or what all the boundaries are and things like that. And they oftentimes either explicitly or implicitly require state executive agencies to say, "Okay, this is what the legislature intends to have happens and this is how we're going to do it."
That would be pretty normal... I mean, it happens all the time in education. The state says, "We're going to have tests," and the legislature doesn't write test questions. The legislature passes it on the executive branch like, "All right, they told us to test reading in the fifth grade and this is what that's now going to look like." So, what kind of guidance did educators in Georgia get from the state agency about these legal changes?
Mike Tafelski: They got nothing. They got a State Department of Education that was directed to create a policy and give some direction. And what they got was the State Department of Education cut and pasting the law into a policy document and then sharing that with the districts, which is then what the districts decided to do, which was cut and paste the policy, cut and paste the law and put it into their own local policies.
And so, there was no clarity, there was no direction that's been given and that has been by design. And the less clarity they give folks, the more fear that's created among educators and the more self-censoring that the results from all of that.
Justin Reich: So, in Georgia, like we've heard in states around the country, these laws are vague. They do not give teachers clear guidance. The states are not giving teachers a clear guidance. They're indicating that there are areas, there are topics or subjects that teachers should not be engaging without specifically clarifying what those topics or areas are. But Katie is moving forward.
She's teaching as she has been anyway. And one morning in March, Katie gathered her students to do a read-aloud with My Shadow is Purple. Katie, can you tell us about My Shadow is Purple? What's the book? What's the plot? How does it go?
Katie Rinderle: My Shadow is Purple is a picture book written by Scott Stuart and throughout this book, a child has many different interests, loves playing with all different sorts of toys and finds theirself not really fitting in with necessarily just the pinks and just the blue shadows, but truly finding themselves as a purple shadow. And comes along to find other friends with many different color shadows that are accepting and inviting for this child to find their friendship and community with. And really just a very affirming book about being true to yourself and celebrating all of our differences.
Justin Reich: Can you take us back to the day that you read My Shadow is Purple? How did you pick the book? What was the lesson like? How was it similar or different from other days that you've done reading with kids?
Katie Rinderle: I had purchased this book at our school, Scholastic Book Fair, the month prior. That particular morning, I was teaching my fifth-grade students. And we had finished our math intervention time and students were able to choose from a variety of books. So, they had placed sticky notes on the books with their names. And I guess we had maybe nine or ten books and My Shadow is Purple had the majority vote. So, we had engaged in a read-aloud of the book and then students were able to do a reflective shadow poem.
Justin Reich: And so, when you say a shadow poem, what were the instructions that you gave to your students? What is a shadow poem?
Katie Rinderle: When I originally gave students the opportunity for their shadow poem, it was very open-ended, so some students were reflecting on their abilities. Some students were reflecting on the connections they made to the text. Some students were even connecting their own struggles with being gifted and just the pressure and the weight of all they had going on in their lives.
Ultimately, they were reflective of my students and their unique personalities, abilities, creativity. I mean they really were reflective of their individualities. And this is something that we do each week. So, students are very familiar with being able to just have that time to express themselves, which it's very needed for... especially with gifted students who sometimes they're asynchronous in learning. Sometimes their emotional selves don't necessarily match with their cognitive selves. So, being able to support students in that way and give them that space is really critical for their development.
Justin Reich: Did any of your kids write about issues related to gender sort of drawing specifically on the book? Did any of them say, "I feel blue and pink too?"
Katie Rinderle: So, some students had identified their shadows as blue and then talking about different sports that they had played. I did have a student who shared that their shadow was purple and that they felt that this book allowed them to finally feel like they needed to be woe with being themselves, that it was okay to be yourself and felt like their heart could glow. So, that child specifically was moved by the book.
And I saw a different excitement in that child that I felt that they needed and that's powerful.
Justin Reich: I mean, I think to those years, and I think how historically there have been all kinds of ways that books have allowed young people to see different expressions of themselves that thinking about girls who really enjoy reading books about tomboys, like, "Oh, that's a different way of being a girl." I mean Little Women is a book, I mean probably not for fourth and fifth graders for the most part, maybe for your gifted fourth and fifth graders. That gives people another lens into all the different ways that we can be people. To some extent that that kind of reflection is one that has been happening in elementary school classrooms for many, many years.
Katie Rinderle: Right, and these gifted students, we have so many interests and it's not always easy fitting in with one another, especially in their homerooms. And they have a lot of feelings and sometimes they're put into this category of what they should be, and that pressure can be, or it can feel intense for them. So being able to be able to relinquish some of that and truly just sit in being who they are and building that confidence, it really does support them and help them to find their place and be able to connect with one another., it's not always easy to get those students to see other perspectives or truly let their own perfectionism aside to just kind of think about who they are and what they want.
We had talked a little bit about post-COVID and coming back from the pandemic. That's a reality that I think all teachers can speak to. And these students have so much, they bring so much with them every day into the classroom. And giving them space to acknowledge that and then have a sense of belonging that improves their academics, that improves their motivation and engagement. It's essential for them to succeed in school.
Justin Reich: When you put My Shadow is Purple in that stack of books that kids can vote for. When you saw a whole bunch of student sticky notes on My Shadow is Purple, were you thinking to yourself like, "Okay, this is something which is going to have sensitivities in the community, this is something that's going to push against these new laws that have passed?" Or were you thinking, "Oh, great, I like this book. Let's read it."
Katie Rinderle: Yeah. I was thinking that this book was reflective of the needs of my students. It was reflective of the identities of some of my students and it was reflective of the other books that I had in my classroom library. So, I never once thought that this was going to be a book that would result in my termination. I never thought that parents would be speaking at school board meetings or that they would be protesting entire identities of families and students. I thought that this book was truly a book that was able to be inclusive and affirming for my students.
And as somebody who was a teacher for many years before being in the gifted classroom, but teaching literature and literacy, this fell in line with my professional knowledge. It fell in line with pedagogy for teaching students. I never had a concern.
Justin Reich: It was just another morning read-aloud. Like 10 years' worth of morning read-alouds, just one in the series?
Katie Rinderle: Yes, just like every other week of every other year.
Justin Reich: And then, how did the complaints come in? How did the district respond?
Katie Rinderle: So, this happened on a Wednesday and by Friday my principal had come in and asked to see the book. Nothing was really explained to me or shared with me, but she asked if she could see the book. So, I handed it over and a few hours later I was asked to come to her office during my planning time. And that was when I was notified that a parent had complained, really was not given any more information. But now post-hearing and discovery of open records, I was able to find out that an email had come in earlier that morning around 6:00 a.m. and it had made its way all the way to the superintendent before I had ever met with her.
So, it was expedited. And I felt that my principal truly didn't even have an understanding or had even listened to my perspective of what had taken place. It seemed very rushed. It did not seem like there was any type of process that was followed.
Justin Reich: It's a terrible and tragic situation. It seems like a situation that would be very difficult to resolve in an amicable way once it gets to this stage. You're an extraordinarily talented educator. There's an earnest need for talented educators all across the country. Why did you decide to contest this?
It seems like one option would be plenty of places to get a job. Why not just say, "This isn't the kind of place that I want to work, I want to move on."
Katie Rinderle: Teachers are self-censoring and there is this vicious attack on education, when you think about it, students are the ones that are ultimately being harmed. And the message that there is something that is othered or so bad and vile that we need to remove it from our rooms and discussions. I mean, that is detrimental to the well-being of my students. And I don't think I ever really questioned just walking away from this. I think what has always pushed me forward was my students and ensuring that they were affirmed and knew that they matter.
The district's viewpoint, that calling them controversial, and divisive, and inappropriate, think about what that does to a whole community of students who already are at risk of having anxiety and depression and attempted suicide. Those are the things that push me forward.
Justin Reich: To me, a really important part of Katie's story is that there are standards. Katie is a gifted educator. Her school, her district has a set of standards for serving those students that include effective dimensions of learning, include emotional, whole child dimensions of learning. And so, her employer has asked her to attend to those parts of learning. And so, then, there are a new set of laws which do not conform, they do not align.
They conflict with the existing standards that Katie is held to. She's really in between a rock and a hard place here. Like a lot of teachers across the country. Katie is facing a set of conflicting mandates that both require that she attend to certain issues and require that she avoid certain issues. And those things overlap around the categories, around dimensions of identity.
Katie decided to fight her termination and she reached out to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group of lawyers that have a long history of being advocates for educators, and she ended up working with Mike Tafelski. So, Michael, when did you first hear about Katie's situation and what motivated you to get involved?
Mike Tafelski: Well, we've been working at SPLC for even before these laws were passed to advocate against these censorship laws across the south and across the country. And so, our team has been in the mix on this for a while and we've been observing and watching what's been happening across the country and trying to figure out how SPLC can really be a strong advocate for teachers and students during this most recent attack on public education. And so, through that, we've done a lot of outreach. And I think Katie identified our team as someone that might be able to support her. Sadly, there aren't enough education civil rights lawyers in our country, and we don't have very many in Georgia either.
So, we were proud and privileged that Katie would reach out. And as soon as I met with her for the first time and heard her story and her experience, I knew this was something that our team needed to be a part of. We have a long history at SPLC through our Learning for Justice work, through our legal work, through our policy work of supporting education justice, of supporting teachers, of supporting students. And this just seemed like a critical moment that we needed to help support Katie and make sure that she had the best representation and legal defense that we could provide. But it's also personal for me.
I'm a parent in Cobb County, I have a child in elementary school in the district. And I think about how fortunate he would've been to have her as his teacher and all that she brought to the classroom.
Justin Reich: Can you tell us what the hearing was? I assume that it's a disciplinary hearing in a school district. How did that go and what were the defenses that you had for Katie?
Mike Tafelski: So, in Georgia, when a teacher is facing termination and this is a tenured teacher, you do have the right to a disciplinary hearing, which while it isn't in a courtroom per se, it was conducted in the school boardroom and it was situated like a courtroom. And it is effectively like a trial where you have a three-person jury who are retired administrators who are selected by the district, selected by the superintendent to hear the evidence, make decisions on the evidence, and make a recommendation for any disciplinary action if they find that any is merited. And then, you have a lawyer who's familiar with education law in Georgia who sits as the judge in the hearing.
And then, the district has the burden of proof. They need to put on evidence and they need to show that there was some policy or legal violation. They alleged that she was insubordinate, that she had engaged in willful neglect of her duties and that there was other good and sufficient basis for her termination, basically saying that they had lost confidence in her. And so, that was how they presented their case or attempted to present their case over the course of two days where we heard from the principal, we heard from the HR director, we heard from parents who complained, we heard from the district's representative. None of them could explain what controversial means, what divisive means, what sensitive means in a way that was consistent across the board.
Justin Reich: Mike, were the arguments by the district entirely based on what I'm imagining is maybe a 30-minute period, a 30-minute span of time that Katie sets a group of books out, lets the kid vote, read a book, lets them write a poem about it. Was the entire case about that hour or were there alleged policy violations either before or after that period?
Mike Tafelski: They attempted to bring up the issue of the Stacey Abrams book, but ultimately, yeah, the bulk of the case was around that reading of the book. And I think that is why folks continue to be so outraged by this situation and this outcome because it's ridiculous.
Justin Reich: To me, one of the most shocking details from the case is that Katie bought a book with her own money from a vendor that was selected by the district, I assume. How is it that a teacher can buy a book from a vendor selected by their district and then have the district say that that book is inappropriate to read the students?
Mike Tafelski: The district's response would be that Katie still had a duty to review the book and determine whether it was appropriate for the classroom. But of course, it makes you speechless to think that a district would take the position that a book purchased at a book fair sponsored by the district at the school where teachers are even given donations to buy books at the book fair from parents and others. It defies logic and I think that we're all still trying to grapple with that.
But I think that that piece of the story has really just, I think set folks across the country into a confusion of what is safe, what is safe to read, what can we do? And I think those types of factors in this case, to highlight the fear that's being created. If a book that's in your school book fair isn't even safe to read in your school, what is?
Katie Rinderle: I said a lot of things at the hearing. That was a long-two days. Censorship negatively impacts the overall quality of education. It denies students their freedoms. It denies students their rights. It truly creates this hostile learning environment that is not good for anybody. And these intentionally vague laws are written in a way that I feel like are living out their intended purpose.
Justin Reich: So, this story is going to end where it was destined to end. There was really no possibility that this hearing does not end in Katie's termination. It's what the superintendent wanted. It's what the school board wanted. It's what was going to happen.
But there was a twist in the story. Katie's case was heard by a panel of three retired educators selected by the superintendent, so handpicked jurors by the prosecution. And they found Katie to have violated some policies, but they did not find it warranted that she should be terminated. So, they sent a recommendation to the school board. And the school board then had to make a final decision about whether or not to fire Katie.
Mike Tafelski: We were surprised that the tribunal did not recommend to terminate Katie only because it was a hand selected tribunal from the superintendent. And so, these proceedings are predetermined outcomes from the start. We knew that this was an exercise to achieve what the superintendent wanted from the beginning, which was to terminate Katie. And he had a school board majority willing to do that. And so, ultimately, were we surprised that a tribunal that was hand-selected by the superintendent arrived at a conclusion that he wasn't recommending?
Yes. And I think it shows that the evidence doesn't support terminating Katie in this case. And so, a few days later, the school board had their meeting and the school board is a four-three Republican majority-led district school board. And they voted along those lines to reject the recommendation from the tribunal, not to terminate Katie and instead decided to terminate her. But ultimately, the superintendent did get the outcome which was not surprising.
And of course we were disappointed. And of course we know that Katie should never have been terminated. And of course we know that Katie belongs in a classroom, so we are disappointed by the outcome, but certainly not surprised.
Justin Reich: Have you thought about what you're going to do next? Is there a legal venue for challenging this further or?
Mike Tafelski: So, we're evaluating, of course, all of our options. Katie has claims. We continue to believe that Katie's termination was wrongful, that it was unlawful and that it was unconstitutional. And we fully intend to defend and protect the rights that Katie has and that the students and teachers across Georgia have. And so, this isn't the end of this case.
This is the beginning of this case. And I think the beginning of creating change that is needed in our schools resulting from these laws, from the minute I met Katie and she shared her story, it was always about her students. And I think that has been demonstrated through her educational career, but also going into this, her decision making process and her thinking about how she wanted to proceed. Because the district did offer her the opportunity to resign. And we argued at the hearing, and we've argued throughout this case, and we'll continue to argue, is that Katie's done nothing wrong.
And she's taken that position. And we agree. And that by taking any other position would be harmful to her students. And I think that is why she has really refused to resign and been so courageous to stand up to this wrongful termination.
Justin Reich: Talk to us about the community rallying around Katie. As I understand it, her firing has been sustained by the superintendent and the school board. The school board is elected. The superintendent is appointed by that elected body. So, how do you think about that, Mike?
How do you think about having neighbors who are both... There must be neighbors who are deeply upset about Katie's firing and there must be neighbors who think that it's warranted?
Mike Tafelski: I think it's important to have context around Cobb County. This has been a historically very conservative county. And over the last decade or so, it is changing significantly and rapidly in a county that was once represented by Newt Gingrich, it went to Joe Biden in the last election by 14 points. So, I think you can see how that change is impacting the community. And this is a school board that is desperately trying to retain political power in a changing county.
And these decisions that it makes like the termination of Katie are politically motivated in hopes to rile up a shrinking voice of people within this community and to hopefully preserve their political power. And I mean, this is the same county where you all know Jaylen Brown from the Celtics. He attended Wheeler High School in Cobb County, which is named after a Confederate general.
Justin Reich: We know Jaylen Brown very well because he actually has quite a bit of involvement with MIT in various kinds of educational initiatives. Yeah, we're big Jaylen fans.
Mike Tafelski: Yeah, me too. I'm a big Celtics fan. But the students at Wheeler High School have been pushing to have their school renamed for years, and this same school board has refused to even listen to that. This is the same school board that refused to implement COVID mitigation practices during the heights of the pandemic, which was harming teachers, which was harming vulnerable students with disabilities. This is a school board that consistently disciplines Black and Brown kids and students with disabilities at a disproportionate rate.
This is a school board that passed an anti-CRT 1619 project resolution before Georgia even passed these censorship laws. They have prided themselves on making policy decisions that are undergirded in bigotry and discrimination and racism and White supremacy, and that just continues to carry over in these current decisions that they're now leaning into with Katie's situation. And even in the last 10 days since Katie has been terminated, they are pulling books off the shelves. They are canceling reading competitions that are beloved by the district. They are really leaning in hopes that they can generate enough interest in this that might preserve their political power.
But I think what they're going to learn is that that number is just a very small, loud minority in this community and that the overwhelming majority of folks want to see schools with teachers like Katie who are teaching inclusive curriculum, who are teaching their kids about equity, who are ensuring that they have diverse reading opportunities and curriculum opportunities. Those are the teachers that folks in Cobb County the overwhelming majority want in their schools, and because they represent the diverse community that we live in here in Cobb. So, I think that that support has really come through as you're seeing people speaking out at school board meetings in support of Katie, as you're seeing folks just this morning handing out BAM Books outside of a local high school and protest to what they are doing.
So, you are seeing an organizing movement of the community that is really, I think, wrapping their arms around Katie and the issues that she's experiencing. And I think it's going to, it's Katie's courage in all of this and her willingness to stand up to the school board that will ultimately lead to the systemic change that this community really wants.
Justin Reich: As a social studies teacher, Mike and Katie, I can't help but observe this as an extraordinary case of the different electorates that we get for national and local elections that presumably Cobb County's last presidential election turnout for all the various times they vote in that year was probably through the roof. And then, local elections are much, much smaller. They trend with much, much older residents who are generally nationally more conservative.
Sounds like in Cobb County are particularly more conservative. And it's quite a case study, especially as those demographic changes. I guess I had followed a little bit of that for following Cobb County in all the national news that Georgia is in, but extraordinary to explore those things here too. What impact do you think this will have on teachers in Georgia?
Mike Tafelski: Well, teachers have been terrified by these laws from the beginning, and so self-censoring has already been happening. Self-censoring was happening in Cobb County even before the laws were passed because of this school board and because of the superintendent. But that's only getting worse now with this decision because Katie is the first teacher in Georgia known to be terminated under these laws. And that fear is real. And teachers are feeling it across the state.
And we're seeing how that fear is really heightened in Cobb this year, as I'm hearing from teachers who are pulling their classroom libraries because they're worried that they might get a complaint, and the language that you're hearing is in abundance of caution, right? In an abundance of caution, we're going to cancel this. We're going to remove these books because nobody knows where the line is of what's going to get you in trouble and what's not going to get you in trouble. So, everybody is just backing further and further and further away from meaningful discussions and curriculum and teaching. And that is a huge harm to our students, our communities, and to our democracy as a whole.
Justin Reich: And that is a huge harm to our students, our communities, and to our democracy as a whole. Amen. I asked Katie and Mike for some final words, some closing thoughts to help us reflect on their story.
Katie Rinderle: I have many feelings, but I really want teachers to know, and students to know that don't stay silent, speak out, make your voices heard because they do matter. Work together as a collective vote. Vote for people who have the same goals for inclusive and affirming education, truthful education. I think that it's important that we all come together so that we can encourage our students in becoming engaged and empathetic participants that our society needs.
Mike Tafelski: I want to say that Katie is a very humble teacher. And I think what also came out at that hearing was that her evaluations and her teaching style were exemplary. She received the highest marks in her evaluations for a decade. And I've talked with many teachers in Cobb County who have told me that just doesn't happen. I mean, it just really highlights what an incredible teacher she has been, her commitment to her students, her commitment to this community.
She was a graduate of Cobb County schools too. And I just think that Katie, she wouldn't say that. But I think it's really important that folks listening understand just what a remarkable teacher in career she has had, and she belongs in the classroom. And she will be back in the classroom and her students will continue to benefit from her. But in the meantime, they've been harmed, and the students who lost a teacher, they have experienced a trauma and they have been harmed by that.
And it's hard when I've spoken with some of the families to hear about how difficult all of this has been on their kids to lose a beloved teacher. I think it just further ingrains for me the importance of this work and the importance of why these laws need to be struck down.
Justin Reich: Yeah. It comes through pretty clearly. Katie, you don't have to talk to you for very long to understand how much you get your craft. Well, Katie and Mike, what you're doing is incredibly important. It's incredibly hard. It's incredibly inspirational. And I'm just so grateful that you come and talk to us about these really tough experiences.
Mike Tafelski: Thanks for having us. And thanks for all the great work that you all do with the podcast.
Katie Rinderle: Well, thanks for having me, Justin, and having Mike too, and just thank you for everything that you're doing to bring awareness to education.
Justin Reich: There is no way to sugarcoat that divisive concept laws, that book bans, that controversies around school, that rude, aggressive behavior towards teachers. All of these things are making it harder to be a teacher, harder to be a school librarian, harder to be an educator. These are tough times for public education. There are lots of sources, of hope throughout this series. We've heard from some really extraordinary educators that are standing up for their values, that are standing up for their students.
Part of the dynamic of divisive concept laws of book bans is that they put the initiative on those who want to restrict teacher speech. The way that these cases get initiated is there is a complaint about teacher speech. And so, folks who are defending teacher speech find themselves reacting. They find themselves on the back foot. It often feels like what you have to do is wait for one of these things to happen.
And then, you can get up and stand up for your community, and that work is incredibly important. But I hope one of the themes that educators have taken away from this series is how important it is to be prepared to realize that these questions, these challenges, these controversies are coming. We can make sure that we have good policies in place. We can make sure we have reflective policies in place. But the other thing we have to do is organize as educators, as community members who are defenders of public schools.
We have to organize to say, it's incredibly important to let parents with diverse beliefs, express those beliefs, give their input about the shape of public schools. But it's also incredibly important that that feedback is woven with feedback from lots of other sources and is connected to the recognition that part of what teachers have to do is improvisational. Part of what they have to do is react to the questions that students ask, the needs that they bring, the curiosities they have, and that means protecting teacher autonomy.
That means protecting teacher speech rights. And make sure that in areas in which we don't all in a community agree that especially single instances of teachers making speech that provokes certain members of our communities, we can't fire teachers for those instances. And we have to organize as communities to protect teacher speech. We've heard from teachers and librarians about how we can do that. Some of it is letting our local officials know how important public schools are to us, how important public libraries are to us.
We have to not just appreciate and walk by or notice when teachers and librarians are doing great work, but we have to actively celebrate, compliment in local newspapers and local forums with our local elected officials. We have to celebrate the work that teachers are doing. I do think this is going to change in the years ahead. I do think that communities are come together and they're going to realize they want children to learn about concepts that some people describe as divisive. In fact, one of the things we want in our public schools is for young people to be able to talk across divisive issues.
I do think that we're going to decide that book bans, book challenges are misdirected, that we want diverse books in our libraries, and that if we need to, we can find ways of making sure that those books get to the right students. And if they're parents who don't want their children to have access to the very small number of books that get challenged in any given library every year, we can probably find ways of doing that too. But we have to get away from this idea that the most extreme voices in our community can dictate the curriculum for all of our students that parents' rights apply as much to students and families who want to see a diverse representative curriculum as those who want to try to constrain that curriculum.
It's a tough topic. It's tough to think through. It's a tough time to be a teacher. But I hope that you found a lot in these eight episodes to help us think about new and better ways forward. I'm Justin Reich.
Thanks for listening to TeachLab and our series on Teacher Speech and the New Divide. Special thanks to our guest, Katie Rinderle and Mike Tafelski. You could check out our show notes to learn more about Katie's case and the great work of Southern Poverty Law Center and Learning for Justice. I've got a new book coming out in September, Iterate, The Secret to Innovation in Schools. You can learn more at iteratebook.com.
If you pre-order the book, you send along your order number, a little bit of information. I'll send you a signed bookplate that you can put in your book, and you can register for a free online course in October about innovation in schools. That's all at iteratebook.com. And you can see our documentary film.
We have to do something different teachers on the journey towards more equitable schools at somethingdifferentfilm.com. You can find links to all this stuff in our show notes. If you like what you hear in TeachLab, be sure to leave us a rating or a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
This episode, this series was produced by Aimee Corrigan and Garrett Beazley. The sound was mixed by Garrett Beazley. Stay safe. Until next time.