King George School Board Considers Establishing a Book Review Committee
Discussion of the school library collection continued at Monday's meeting. Also, Board member Matthew Roles resigned his seat.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
There have been five responses from the community to the list of books King George proposes to purchase for the middle school library, and four of the five are in support of trusting librarians to make the purchase without community input.
The list was published early this month following a request by School Board members for more oversight into what books end up in the library’s collection. It and a link to the community feedback form are housed under the “Library” tab on the division’s main website.
Deputy superintendent Troy Wright read aloud the five responses that have been received so far at Monday’s School Board meeting, as part of a discussion on selection procedures for school library materials.
“Thanks for curating a great list of books like you were taught to do for your profession,” wrote one community member, addressing the school librarians. “I think this list looks great. It looks like what students want to read.”
A parent of a student in the school division wrote, “Please allow librarians to do their dang jobs and quit wasting time with this nonsense.”
One response objected to the purchase of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han.
“This book is sexually explicit and not a good use of taxpayer dollars,” the person stated.
King George Middle School librarian Jessica Drinks told School Board members that librarians reviewed this book after receiving the feedback form and found it to not be sexually explicit.
Superintendent Jesse Boyd said he, Wright, and the librarians spent a working day revising the selection procedures for school library materials, following this year’s challenge of at least 18 titles that a community member argued are not appropriate for the middle school library.
The 18 challenged titles went through a review process and then were appealed to Boyd, who determined that nine of them do meet the definition of “sexually explicit” and will require parents to give permission before students can check them out.
Boyd and the librarians on Monday presented the revised procedures to the School Board. In addition to stating that the division will publish a list of proposed book purchases and allow the community to provide feedback for 15 days, the updated procedures contain information about the specific resources librarians use to evaluate books and how books are weeded from the collection.
The librarians said they consider the median reading age recommended by the review sources.
“We’re looking at the middle of road age of the students we’re serving,” Drinks said, noting that a middle school library would never have a book on its shelves that all the review sources cite as appropriate for grades 9-12.
If they were to find more variance among recommended reading ages, Drinks said, the librarians would consider additional review resources.
School Board member Matthew Roles said the librarians should not “be beholden to national reviews.”
“This is King George,” he said. “Really it ought to be sensitive to our community and what King George finds appropriate.”
Roles and School Board member Ed Frank said they’d like the School Board to establish a library review committee in order to ensure that the collection reflects what the community thinks is appropriate.
Board member Colleen Davis indicated that she would also be supportive of a committee. She said she wants more reassurance that sexually explicit books are not going to end up on library shelves.
“We’re getting a lot of pressure from 70% of King George saying, ‘How are we going to make sure these books aren’t coming back in?’” she said.
Drinks said, “I think we need to remember that we’re talking about nine books at the middle school found to be sexually explicit, and we have a collection of 9,000.”
“The majority of our collection, using this procedure, has worked well to be able to find age-appropriate books for the students,” she said.
Boyd said he has concerns about how a library review committee would be assembled.
“I struggle with how those meetings are going to run and how effective we’re going to be at working through those book titles,” he said.
Boyd said the intent of publishing the purchase list is to give the entire community a chance to weigh in, but Roles said that puts too much responsibility on the community to remember to check the list.
“With a committee, it makes it very obvious—do you approve or disapprove? With this, its haphazard,” he said.
The Board agreed to accept the revised procedures as they were presented on Monday and allow the proposed book purchase to proceed, but Chair David Bush asked the librarians to return to the next meeting with research from surrounding divisions on how a library review committee could work.
Roles resigns
During comments at the end of Monday’s meeting, Roles said he is resigning from the School Board effective “one week from today.”
Roles was vocal at the last School Board meeting about wanting to remove one of the challenged books, ttfn by Lauren Myracle, from both the middle and high school library, but the Board voted instead to uphold Boyd’s decision to keep them available but in a restricted section.
But Roles, who was elected in 2021, said, “If anyone thinks I’m quitting because I lost a 4-to-1 vote, I believe in never stopping to fight for what’s right.”
“Sometimes doing the most good requires a change in tactics,” he continued.
Roles said library books present an “insidious threat to students in the community” and that he would still be active in school matters, just “not from up here” on the dais.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit our website at the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past month, our reporting was:
First to report on a Spotsylvania School teacher arrested for bringing drugs onto campus.
First to report on new facility fees leveled by MWHC on patient bills.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Provided extensive coverage of the cellphone bans that are sweeping local school districts.
And so much more, like Clay Jones, Drew Gallagher, Hank Silverberg, and more.
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
