New Wake rules would set 2-year limit on book challenges and get input from students
A Wake County school board committee has backed limits on how often book challenges can be filed, as well as allowing high school students to serve on a district book challenge review panel.
The school board’s policy committee voted Tuesday to back updates to the book challenge policy, amid growing calls from some parents to try to remove materials they say are inappropriate to be in school libraries.
If the changes are approved by the full board, book challenge decisions would be binding for two years before they can be formally challenged again by parents.
“I trust, I always go back to the professionalism of our librarians and our people that work in our media centers in our schools and our teachers who select materials for our classrooms,” said board member Lynn Edmonds.
The Wake County chapter of Moms for Liberty filed 189 book challenges against 20 books last month ahead of the adoption of the policy changes. District administrators rejected all 189 because none of them were filed by parents at the schools where the books are located.
Members of the group and other parents have regularly attended board meetings to read excerpts of books they say shouldn’t be in school libraries because they’re sexually explicit, have profanity or discuss gender identity.
School board member Cheryl Caulfield said students can find values in books that have scenes that are “a little uncomfortable.” But what she said parents are complaining about goes far beyond just reading a few curse words.
“I’m talking about sexually explicit material that I do not think that belongs in our schools,” Caulfield said.
How to challenge books in Wake
Wake’s updated policy says books can be challenged for removal from school libraries or classrooms if they’re “educationally unsuitable, pervasively vulgar, or inappropriate to the age, maturity, or grade level of the students.” The policy does not define “pervasively vulgar.”
The policy says that challenges at individual schools must be made by families who attend those schools. Challenges will be heard by a committee formed by the principal. Students would not be on the school committees.
Parents can appeal decisions made by the school committee to the district’s Central Instructional Materials Committee. This committee would also hear challenges involving materials used at the district level.
Decisions of the district committee can be appealed to the school board.
The committee rejected adding a process where challenges can go directly to the school board.
Citing how long the process is to review challenges, the policy would establish a two-year moratorium, once a decision is reached, before a parent could file a challenge against that book again at that specific school.
Parents would also be able to request that their children not read a particular book if it’s part of a classroom assignment.
Should students review book challenges?
Under the updated policy, up to two high school students would serve on the Central Instructional Materials Committee when there are challenges made against books used in high schools. Students would need parental permission to serve on the committee.
Moms for Liberty has opposed allowing students to serve on the committee. That concern was echoed Tuesday by Caulfield and board member Wing Ng.
“We’re asking children to make decisions for other children,” Caulfield said. “They should not be deciding for others.”
Ng said that the district shouldn’t be dragging students into the process.
“I don’t think that students should be involved in the process,” Ng said. “They have other more important things to be taking care of.”
But other board members said that they want the voices of students to be heard in the process.
“Let the students decide what they’re capable of doing,” said board member Tyler Swanson. “We have some talented students in this district who are speaking their truth to power.”
Swanson had unsuccessfully lobbied to keep the names of students anonymous because he said he was worried they’d become victims of cyberbullying. District staff said that would not be possible under the state’s Open Meetings Law.
This story was originally published June 20, 2023 at 4:26 PM.
