A Change.org petition calling for school board member, Shannon Rodriguez, to be removed has been signed more than 18,000 times. The petition was launched in response to Ms Rodriguez's decision to investigate a teacher after she showed her fifth-grade class a Disney film.
Teacher, Jenna Barbee - who is in her first year of teaching - was slammed by Ms Rodriguez for putting on a PG rated Disney movie, Strange World, in front of her class at Hernando County School, Florida. The film includes a gay character, which could have been in breach of Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' law - which came into effect July 1, 2022.
Taking to her TikTok account at the time, Ms Barbee said the reason why she showed her pupils the film is because it fitted in with the class curriculum, as they were being taught eco-systems and earth-related science. She went on to explain that the film's "harmless" LGBTQ+ subplot wasn't why she put the film on.
