Teacher Lets Kids Watch 50 Shades of Grey, and One Mom Was So Mad the Teacher Got a Restraining Order

If you want drama and intrigue and complicated characters, 50 Shades of Grey will deliver–not the book or movie, obviously, the property is awful, but a Wisconsin teacher let some students in her class watch the movie recently, and the fallout from that situation has been so crazy that it would make a much better movie.

According to SheKnows, back in August a group of high school girls was going to a volleyball meet, chaperoned by one teacher and one school board member. The teacher was driving one car with the freshmen and sophomores, and the school board member another with the juniors and seniors. During a stop at a grocery store, several of the older girls decided they wanted to rent 50 Shades of Grey to watch in the car. The teacher said no, but the girls pushed for it and pointed out that they were all over 17, and most of them had seen it anyway. So the teacher rented the movie and said it would be up to the school board member if they actually watched it, because it was her car and she was driving.

So they rented the movie. The school board member let them watch it in the back seat.

OK, that’s not the most appropriate thing I’ve ever heard of, but it’s not nearly as bad as I was expecting. The kids were reportedly over 17 and watched it of their own volition, and they were all old enough to have gone and bought a ticket to see it in theaters if they wanted.

None of the parents of the girls who watched the video reportedly had a problem with their having done so, either.

One mother did, though. The teacher says that Christa Reinert, the mother of one of the 14-year-olds in the teacher’s car, has been engaging in a 7-month campaign of  “harassment, intimidation and slander” in an attempt to get her fired over the incident, even though Reinert’s daughter never actually saw the movie. The teacher even took out a restraining order against Reinert.

The teacher says that Reinert started sending her vaguely threatening emails about how showing children “harmful or pornographic material” is a felony.

As if that weren’t all crazy enough, it gets crazier. Reinert says that she did send the text of the law to the teacher, but it wasn’t a threat. She said she was trying to point out that the school district was treating the incident like it was nothing, and she thinks it was definitely a bigger deal.

Reinert alleges that the restraining order and accusations of bullying are actually because she announced her intention to run for school board, and that the school actually called the police when she came to bring her kids lunch last week. The whole situation sounds like madness, and Reinert said that part of it is that even though she’s been in the town for decades, she’s still considered an “outsider” because she was not born there, and apparently there is no drama like small-town drama.

“Families in this town are so intertwined ”” if you’re not happy with something, you’re not going to stick your neck out,” Reinert said. “I did it because I’m tired of it.”

No, the teacher and board member shouldn’t have showed the kids Fifty Shades of Grey,  but Reinert’s kid never actually saw the movie, and she needs to pick another hill for her last stand.

(Gif: GIphy)