Midlands schools must implement new statewide book ban rules. How will districts cope?
At a school board meeting this week, Lexington-Richland 5 trustees worried just how raucous and raunchy a public hearing on book challenges could get.
One board member referenced a previous hearing the district held about a challenged book that involved a novel’s graphic sex scenes read aloud to a crowd of teachers, parents and students.
“Does that mean they can come in and read out the bad language they’re concerned about?” asked board member Mike Satterfield.
He worried future hearings could devolve into a forum for airing sexually explicit or racially charged language, taken out of context.
But his fellow board members at Monday’s meeting worried those concerns only underlined what they saw as inappropriate content in some school materials.
“We’re tasked with protecting minors,” said vice chair Matt Hogan. “If it’s not appropriate to read for adults, it might not be appropriate for children.”
Lexington-Richland 5 isn’t alone in pondering these questions. School boards across the state will have to reevaluate their policies to determine whether they comply with new rules that are binding on all public school districts in South Carolina.
At the instigation of S.C. Superintendent Ellen Weaver, the S.C. Department of Education this summer imposed new rules that allow the state board of education to review local school boards’ decisions about allegedly age-inappropriate materials used in classrooms and libraries, especially material with broadly defined “sexual content.”
Any parent can now challenge a book or other material up to the state board, and if board members overturn a local district’s decision to allow the material it could effectively ban a controversial work in every school district in the state.
Proposed new book challenge policy
Under the proposed new policy being considered in Lexington-Richland 5, any parent in the district can file a complaint identifying offending material and request that it be restricted to a certain grade or age group or removed from the school completely. The revised policy says that parents must make a “good faith effort to address their concerns” with school staff before filing a complaint with the school board. A single complainant is limited to five objections per month under state rules.
The proposal is a change from how the Chapin-Irmo district handled book challenges in the past. In recent challenges in Lexington-Richland 5, the books were first read and reviewed by a committee including teachers, librarians, administrators and parents. Now, in line with the language in the new state rules, the school board has 90 days to rule on a challenge to a book. A parent would then have another 30 days after that to appeal the board’s decision to the state board of education.
The rules also won’t require a challenged book to be taken off the shelves until the challenge is resolved, as the district has done in the past, District Chief of Academics Tina McCaskill said at Monday’s board meeting.
In recent years the district has reviewed challenges to a graphic novel about King Tut and a children’s book on Black identity, both of which were ultimately returned to school shelves. But last year the board did remove the fantasy book “A Court of Mist and Fury” and other books in the series, something faculty pushed back on at the time.
“Teachers feel overwhelmed by this law,” Satterfield said. “The way that this whole thing is being presented as so encompassing for everything. It’s not just a book or a video, it’s anything a teacher might use in a classroom,” noting that teachers often use supplemental material in their classes.
Some elective classes don’t even have formal textbooks, and depend on the teachers to come up with a lesson plan from scratch each day, he said.
The new policy would require teachers to get approval for outside materials from team leaders within their department, a compromise from having the principal personally approve all material a teacher might use. That way, McCaskill said, a teacher might get sign-off on a YouTube video from a colleague during a break between classes.
“I don’t want this to be a formal thing for teachers,” Satterfield said. “It’s like saying we don’t trust you, we don’t trust your professional judgment.”
Board member Kevin Scully also worried the rules would set unnecessary hurdles in the way of teachers trying to teach. “Professionals don’t have someone constantly watching over their shoulder,” he said.
Impact on school book fairs, field trips
The neighboring Lexington 1 school district is considering similar changes to ensure the district’s library policy aligns with the new state standards. A proposal considered by the Lexington 1 board Tuesday would give the board discretion to send complaints to a subcommittee of three board members, which could hold a hearing and send its report back to the full board.
Board members there questioned how far the regulations could go. Board vice chair Kathy Henson asked if the rules apply to book fairs that outside partners sometimes host in the district.
“If they do it in a school building, it needs to be in compliance with the regulations,” Chief Academic Officer Mary Gaskins told the board.
Likewise, Gaskins said, the rules would be applicable during school-sponsored field trips, after-school clubs or other district activities. “We may receive additional guidance,” she said.
On Aug. 15, the Lexington 2 school board also approved changes to bring policies in the Cayce-West Columbia school district in line with state policy.
“I would point out that these changes track with exactly what the state has requested school districts do,” board member Beth Branham said in making the motion, which was approved unanimously.
Last school year, Lexington 2 removed at least 17 books from school libraries due to parental challenges.
Lexington-Richland 5 board members also indicated they would prefer the full board hold a hearing on any complaints, with a chance to hear from parents making the challenge and members of the community. But if a challenged book isn’t first reviewed and cleared by a committee of community volunteers, there won’t be a side at the hearing formally arguing in favor of the book.
“This is going to be a shift for all,” district superintendent Akil Ross said, but “we do need supplemental materials to enrich and remediate.”
.jpg)