In his article on the latest book banning by the Rockingham County School Board, Lee Zion wrote, referring to the vote against “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher, that, “No one from the public spoke for or against the book.”
Actually, the Content Review Committee, composed of four parents and three Rockingham Public School educators, had spoken. They recommended keeping it.
Lisa Raff Varga, executive director of the Virginia Library Association adds, “Three minutes is not an adequate amount of time to have civil discourse on the nuances of that particular title, or many others.”
No one used the public comment period, but it would not have made any difference. Public comment has been moved to occur after any vote, so it is apparent that parents’ opinions mean little. School board attendance has dropped off because many people feel unsafe attending, so they monitor the livestream or check the recording the next day instead of appearing in person.
After petitions were presented from 500 parents and 200 staff members, parents were hopeful that perhaps there might be more openness and transparency from the board. Some members did meet with constituents. However, after I requested a meeting, Sara Horst wrote, “Responding to your emails or agreeing to meet with you is going to be a waste of time.”
Others also report that emails are often unanswered. One parent told me, “Negative changes and the fact that my rep actively laughs at my comments and has had family members vandalize my home led me to leave the school system.”
Rockingham County librarians have been scared to speak up. Their contributions to the policy developed by the board were not even acknowledged. More recently, librarians believe that fighting back against book bans is futile.
When the Content Review Committee was established, librarians were hopeful that a decision would be made by the seven committee members based on not only a thorough reading of each book as a whole, but also followed by a robust discussion of any questionable excerpts, during which these excerpts would be subjected to the definition of “sexually explicit content” as defined by VA code.
If they would not consider the policy librarians created to address sexually explicit content, perhaps they would at least respect the recommendation of a committee that they requested be formed by the Superintendent. Alas, this hope is in vain.
For “Thirteen Reasons Why,” though, there was no public discussion among board members. They simply voted to remove it against the committee’s recommendation. Committee members have dedicated at least three meetings discussing the books removed against their recommendation, after reading them in their entirety.
A conservative estimate of the time involved is around 34 hours reading — at about one page per minute — and then another five hours discussing them. That’s about a full work week for each of the seven people on the committee. This work was summarily dismissed by most of the school board, who focused only on specific pages. This is an approach also used by the site BookLooks, created by Moms for Liberty.
Besides disregarding the work of professional educators and community members, the Board is not following what is known about reading and children. It is well established that the way to get better at reading is to read. It’s also well known that young people read more when they can choose their books and can access books relevant to their world.
Sometimes their world contains tough things. No family is immune to drug use, sexual abuse, child abuse, homelessness, suicide, chronic illness, or poverty, and we know there are children in our schools who experience these issues.
Gay Ivey and Peter Johnston, who have researched extensively on reading, explain that students benefit from reading texts with difficult situations by vicariously living through their options and learning how fictional characters worked through some of these issues. They found that teens with freedom to read were more likely to talk with parents about issues they read about, and were also more understanding of seemingly over protective warnings from parents.
They also had higher reading scores and were more engaged with school and peers. One student commented: “I think most of the books I read have life lessons. Like “Crank.” When I read those [books by Ellen Hopkins], it’s not telling you, “Hey, go out and do drugs and have sex and stuff.” It’s telling you about how bad their life is if you do this stuff.”
Rockingham County has extensive notification systems for parents about what their children read. This board assumes exclusive power over what every child reads and who should see themselves in books. Who will speak for the books?
The current Rockingham County School Board believes it should be them, and only them. Our kids deserve better than this censorship.
This post was originally published on here
