Brainerd School Board begins work on new book policy - Brainerd Dispatch

BRAINERD — Critics of Brainerd’s policy about school library books are getting their wish.A new policy pertaining specifically to library materials and how community members can challenge them is in the works.The School Board’s Policy/Community Relations Committee began the work during a meeting Wednesday, Oct.25.Board members Randy Heidmann and Kevin Boyles sit on the committee, tasked with assisting administrators in updating the district’s policy manuals.District policy 606 pertains to textbooks and instructional materials used in schools and has been the subject of criticism this year, as it is not specific to choice reading books that are in school libraries.Concerns over library book offerings came to light in June, whenseveral community members spokeat the School Board meeting about books like “The Kite Runner” and “What Girls Are Made Of,” which they said were sexually explicit and did not belong in middle school libraries.Tim Murtha, director of teaching and learning, later clarified those two specific books were on the mature reading list at the Forestview Middle School library, meaning they are only available to seventh and eighth grade students with parent permission.The board discussed matters further at the following meeting in July, when membersvoted 4-2 to upholdthe district’s current book policy, with some members wanting to review it further.The Minnesota School Boards Association has since created a draft policy for library materials, available to districts throughout the state.Heidmann and Boyles reviewed that policy Wednesday after administrators made some Brainerd-specific tweaks, including language about library books from policy 606.The new policy has yet to go in front of the full board and be approved for district use.Superintendent Heidi Hahn said the proposed policy outlines the purpose of school libraries, why schools have them and what kinds of materials they have.“Question — do we even need a library?” Heidmann asked.“Is there a law that says the school district has to have a library? Because, I mean, we’re going more and more digital.… Is there a requirement to have a library?”While a physical school library might only have a certain number of books because of space and financial constraints, Murtha explained the existence of the many digital resources that are also offered to students through the library.“That’s the power of a digital library, so I would say it’s absolutely essential that we have one,” Murtha said.“What the ratio is of hardbound text to digital text, that’s a function of the capacity of the district.It goes by space, it goes by cost and it goes by interest.We do need students to know how to engage both physical print text and digital text. Why?Because that’s where the world is now, and that’s not going to roll back.”Heidmann said his question was simply about the legal requirements to have a school library, and Hahn went back to part of the mission statement of the new policy, which says the School Board recognizes the vital role library materials play in students’ education by enriching the curriculum.The goal of the new policy, Boyles noted, is twofold — to determine how to review materials already in the library and clarify how materials are evaluated before they come into the library.Choosing booksRight now, district administrators use a curriculum support tool called Titlewave, which curates recommended books for students at each grade level to stock in the libraries.Staff at each building — including principals and library media specialists — review the recommendations and can accept the books, reject them or suggest they be placed at a different level.The newly proposed policy is in line with the current process, stating the responsibility for material selection lies with professionally trained school district staff.Heidmann asked why a person needs to be professionally trained to choose library books, noting that he understands why that would be the case for textbooks and classroom materials.Hahn said she thinks school staff should be a part of anything related to choosing materials in the school, and she and Boyles both asked Heidmann who he would rather have do it, if not a trained media specialist and licensed educators.Heidmann suggested having a community member be a part of the process, to which Hahn and Boyles said that move would set a precedent for community members to be a part of every other district policy as well and create issues of fairness.“I get the idea behind it, but I can’t see a way to execute on that that would be fair,” Boyles said, “especially if you’re only picking one community member.”Heidmann said he understood the rationale that community member involvement is not included in other policies.Challenging booksThe proposed policy outlines a process for community members to challenge library books, similar in nature to the current process in policy 606.Before a formal challenge, those with concerns would be directed to the building principal first to see if the issue could be addressed that way.If that avenue doesn’t work, the person could then fill out a formal challenge form.The challenge process was used for the first time in nearly a decade this year, when community member Shirley Yeagerchallenged “Empire of Storms,”the fifth book in the “Throne of Glass” series by fantasy author Sarah J.Maas.Brainerd Public Schools officials discuss "Empire of Storms" during a meeting Friday, Aug.18, 2023, at Brainerd High School. The book's presence in the high school library has been challenged by a community member and is under review.Theresa Bourke / Brainerd DispatchPer policy 606, the district convened an ad hoc committee made up of teachers, administrators, principals, library staff, District Advisory Committee members, a school board member and a student.They all read the book, heard testimony for and against it, and then answered questions relating to how the book supports the district’s educational goals, meets personal needs of students, is appropriate for the developmental range of students and takes into account both atypical and average students.Theyvoted unanimously to retainthe book in the high school library.Before this year, the last time the challenge protocol was used was in 2014, when parent Doug Kern advocated for theremoval of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”from classroom curricula.The committee at the time agreed to keep the book.The process in the proposed policy would retain many of the same people on a resource selection committee when a book is challenged, though the group gathered for the Policy Committee meeting discussed the latitude to allow an assistant principal at the high school or middle school level instead of needing to have the principal.As written, Hahn said, Jon Anderson and Andrea Rusk, the middle and high school principals, are required to sit on every selection committee when a book is challenged.Under the new policy, they would be able to delegate an assistant principal, and a high school principal would not need to be present if the book in question is at the elementary level.The new policy would also require anyone who challenges a book to read it in its entirety before it is challenged.In the most recent challenge, Yeager said she did not read the whole book but took issue with a few sexual scenes.Heidmann said he didn’t see the need for a complainant to be required to read a whole book before challenging it.Hahn pointed to the definition of “obscenity” according to state statute, as obscene material was one of the complaints community members spoke about at board meetings this year.The state defines obscene as “the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex and depicts or describes in a patently offensive manner sexual conduct and which, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”Not taking the whole book into account, Boyles and Hahn said, would literally violate state statute.Whether the review committee could make recommendations beyond retaining and removing the book was also up for debate.In the case of “Empire of Storms,” the committee recommended the School Board discuss retaining the entire “Throne of Glass” series and not entertaining challenges on other books, which would require more committees to be formed and more staff time taken to read all the books.The School Board has not yet discussed that recommendation.While Heidmann said it wasn’t in the committee’s purview to even make that recommendation, Boyles said he doesn’t mind if a committee makes a recommendation, as it’s not something the board would necessarily have to act on.In this case, Hahn said the committee wasn’t sure what to do with this concern that it had, so the members made the recommendation to the board.Though the board hasn’t discussed the request yet, Boyles said he would not be in favor of it. If a complainant is required to read a whole book before challenging it, he said district officials shouldn’t be allowed to make retention decisions on books they haven’t read in their entirety.Instead of allowing for similar recommendations for a review committee in the future, those present Wednesday agreed to add a place for committee feedback into the new policy, allowing committee members to reflect on the process and whether it worked well or not.Up nextThe School Board’s next regular meeting is 6 p.m.Nov.13, and the proposed policy is expected to be on the agenda for discussion if it can be drafted with all the changes from the policy committee in time.THERESA BOURKE may be reached [email protected] 218-855-5860.Follow her on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa.