HERNANDO COUNTY, Fla. — The Florida Department of Education is investigating a teacher for showing a Disney movie to her fifth graders.
This comes just weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis expanded his parental bill of rights. The legislation places restrictions on the content allowed to be discussed in classrooms.
The movie, "Strange World," is at the center of the Department of Education's investigation. The teacher who played the movie is Jenna Barbee. She's a new teacher at Winding Waters K-8 in Brooksville, Florida.
"When I showed a Disney movie that had a character who was gay, which is only portrayed in two minutes and 30 seconds across the entire hour and 45-minute film, and that didn't faze me because there's no sexualization or inappropriate content," Barbee said when addressing the school board during last week's meeting.
In a TikTok Barbee posted over the weekend, she said she thought she was following the rules when she chose to play the movie for her class, who just wrapped up standardized testing.
"I was told by every teacher and mentor at our school that our method for approval by administration of showing movies was to have a signed parent permission slip for PG movies," Barbee said. "I had that from the beginning of the year."
Barbee said it was one of her student's parents who reported her to the Department of Education. That parent is also on the school board.
"While Miss Barbee is busy taking the light off herself and playing the victim, the real victims are our children," school board member and parent Shannon Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez also took the complaint to the school principal. In last week's school board meeting, she said Barbee did not follow proper protocol in getting the movie approved to be played for students.
"Miss Barbee chose to show a PG movie without approval when brought to the attention of the principal Ms.O'Rourke, she informed me that the movie had not been approved, and it was not appropriate," Rodriguez said.
When Barbee addressed the school board, she said the movie was selected because of how it related to current lesson plans, not because of the brief storyline of a gay character.
"So I chose this movie because it relates to our curriculum," Barbee said. "Our unit at the time was earth science and ecosystems and how they interact. Plants, humans, animals. So this movie is perfect."
The Department of Education's investigation includes interviewing students in Barbee's class.
Last week parents were contacted by the school, letting them know the movie, 'Strange World' was played during class. The email said it will not be shown to students again, moving forward.
10 Tampa Bay reached out to the Department of Education regarding the investigation. The press secretary, Cassie Palelis, shared the following statement.
"Pursuant to section 1012.796(4), Florida Statutes, we can neither confirm nor deny that the Department has a pending investigation regarding the referenced individual... I understand that the individual in question has discussed her case publicly. However, we will not allow politics and media pressure to dictate our process."
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.