We’re approaching the end of the first 6 months of my time on the School Committee, so I wanted to take a second to update everyone on the status of a major issue that was raised during last Fall’s campaign: library freedom. I’m not interested in re-hashing the past – the Sun Chronicle covered the election, and their coverage is readily available to interested people. However, I sent a mailer out just before the election and one of the things I promised to do was “Defend the freedom and independence of our schools’ libraries,” so I thought it would be worthwhile to summarize what actions the School Committee has taken since January on that topic.
I assume most people reading this are familiar with the controversy that erupted this winter in North Attleborough, but as a quick summary: at the request of one parent, and without the knowledge of the North Attleborough school committee, one school removed the book “Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice” from the public section of the school library. When news of that leaked out several months later, and after a sizable contingent of parents and the North Attleborough School Committee itself objected, the decision was reversed. Part of the issue as I understand it (and I’m just an outsider reading the paper when it comes to North Attleborough politics), is that the policy document that guides library acquisitions is old and didn’t clearly explain the adoption criteria and procedure.
That got my attention. Since I’m on the “Policy and Personnel” Subcommittee, I wanted us to prevent that sort of thing happening here. Before I can explain what we did and why, indulge me in a brief explanation of what this subcommittee is charged with. The Policy and Personnel subcommittee’s principal duty is making sure that Attleboro Public School’s official policy documents are up-to-date and legal. The way we ensure they are legal is largely by working hard to align all of our policies with a bank of legally vetted policies maintained by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC). So an average Policy meeting consists of reviewing our policies, comparing them to the suggested policies from MASC, and either adjusting ours to be in alignment, or noting the reasons for differences. It’s almost entirely routine, but, as anyone who followed the news from North Attleborough knows, it’s important. The first thing I did when reviewing our policies in light of the schools’ libraries is look through our policy bank for anything relevant. (All APS Policies can be found here. You can see the date each policy was adopted or reviewed). At the time I looked, we didn’t seem to have a formal policy on Library material acquisition. So I went looking through the MASC policy library (here), and found a suggested policy on Library Materials Selection and Adoption that states, very clearly, what principles shall be used to select and adopt library materials, as well as affirming the School Committee’s support of the ALA “School Library Bill of Rights.” That seems like common sense to me, so I got it put on the agenda for the March meeting of the Policy & Personnel subcommittee meeting where it was unanimously endorsed; at the March 11th School Committee meeting, that policy was unanimously adopted. The policy as adopted by the Committee is here.
You’ll note as you read this policy, that it says nothing about specific books or ideologies and explicitly states: “Place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality in order to assure a comprehensive collection appropriate for the users of the library.” This is really important to me. I’m not interested in seeing extremists of any variety dictate what belongs in the library. Efforts to remove books like The Kite Runner, or Push, are just as misguided as attempts to remove books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or Atlas Shrugged, would be. Another important part of this policy is the statement that “Complaints about library books will be handled in line with Committee policy on complaints about instructional materials.” That policy, “Reconsideration of Instructional Resources,” can be read here. It states, essentially, instructional resources should provide balanced, factual materials on religions and ideologies, ensuring that content with profanity or obscenity is evaluated for literary merit and contextual relevance, that district adopted procedures will be used to evaluate any complaints, and that once a work is evaluated, it may not be evaluated again for three years. That all seems reasonable, rational, and sensible.
It’s important to note: none of this in any way infringes on a parent’s right to determine what their own kids read. These policies are to prevent people from controlling what other people’s kids read. It’s official stated policy that parents are able to deny their kids access to whatever book they want. At this writing, that’s happened four times this year and all of them have been requests to deny kids access to the Young Adult section at two of our middle schools. That’s 100% fair, reasonable, and moderate. I personally have always let my kids read just about whatever they want, but I totally support and endorse other parents making different choices. Respect for other viewpoints is what makes us great and I’ll always fight for that. I’ve made it clear all along that I don’t believe the School Committee’s job is to micromanage. We don’t tell the Facilities department what kind of wax to use on the floors; we don’t tell the IT Department what sort of password aging policies they should enforce, and we don’t tell the librarians how to do their job. Our job is to provide oversite and create an environment where the professionals can do their jobs the best way they can.
As always: please do reach out to me at aaron.bennett@attleboroschools.com with any questions or comments on this (or any other) issue.
