The Georgia Court of Appeals has handed down a split decision in two closely watched Cobb County school battles, sending a controversial student expulsion back to a lower court for another look while upholding the firing of former teacher Katie Rinderle. The move reopens the door for a fresh fight over a Black student’s two-year expulsion and quietly shuts one state-level path for Rinderle’s bid to get her job back.
Appeals court presses pause on student expulsion
Earlier this month the court vacated a Cobb County Superior Court order that had reinstated K.B.’s expulsion and told the lower court to take a harder look at whether the district went too far in punishing off-campus conduct, according to the opinion posted at FindLaw. Court records show K.B., a Black student with a disability, was expelled in 2023 under Cobb’s off-campus conduct policy after the Georgia State Board of Education had already reversed the expulsion, setting off a last-minute district appeal filed just days before the new school year, as reported by Axios.
Appeals court backs Rinderle firing
In a separate ruling, the Court of Appeals affirmed that Cobb County schools lawfully terminated fifth-grade teacher Katherine (Katie) Rinderle after she read the picture book My Shadow Is Purple to her class, as reported by CBS News. Rinderle’s lawyers, including attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), have cast her ouster as part of a broader clash over classroom censorship and educator speech, while the district has consistently argued that she was dismissed for willful neglect of duties, according to court filings and public statements.
What comes next for the student case
K.B.’s case now heads back to Cobb County Superior Court, where judges must dig into whether the district’s off-campus discipline policy stretched beyond its legal reach and whether missteps in the process denied the student a fair hearing. Advocates say the dispute shines a spotlight on wider discipline gaps in Cobb, with data in court filings and local reporting showing that Black students and students with disabilities face exclusionary discipline at disproportionately high rates in the district, according to the Cobb County Courier.
Key legal questions on the table
The appeals court flagged a set of legal questions for the superior court to tackle, including whether the local school board had the authority to expand punishment for off-campus behavior and how state law limits a district’s reach. Those standing and statutory issues are laid out in detail in the published opinion. However the superior court comes down could help define when and how schools across Georgia can punish students for what happens off campus, and it is likely to ripple through ongoing fights over student rights, discipline equity and what discretion educators have inside the classroom.
