In a public comment at the St. Joseph School Board meeting in August, school district parent Valerie Gehrke asked the school district to recognize a book she felt was pornographic in nature. On Monday, Gehrke returned to the board, where she thanked her administration for removing the book from the library.
The only problem, however, is that the book has not been removed from circulation.
Addressing confusion towards the end of Monday’s September school board meeting, St. Joseph Superintendent Jenny Fee said Elana K. Arnold’s book, What Girls Are Made Of, has not been removed from circulation. said it was checked out by media center specialists as part of a regular review process. It had yet to be formally challenged.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding, so I wanted to clarify the procedure,” Fee said. “We have not officially taken the book down. …We have a very established process if someone wants to challenge a book in our classroom library.
Fees referred to in NEOLA Board Policy 9130shows the criteria for challenging teaching materials in schools.
“If someone comes [to challenge material], you’ll need to have a conversation with your classroom teacher or media center professional first,” Fee said. “Once you fill out the form, you create a committee … and that committee judges those books under certain criteria.”
The book “What Girls Are Made Of” 2017 National Book Awards Finalist in Literature for Young People. The National Book Foundation describes the book as examining what it means to be a girl, a woman, and a physical object.
“This challenging piece invites readers to look at themselves and explore their own identities and imperfections,” said the judges. A strong backbone of feminist mythology gives the novel an extra layer of depth and pain. ” – Jury quotes
At a meeting in August, Geerke strongly objected to the book being on school shelves, saying the book was too sexually explicit for children to read.
“It was porn,” she said. “There is nothing she would want her daughters or sons or other children to read. What made me think … is the level of content students have access to.”
She asked the board to clarify the review process for what is included in the library.
“If you haven’t heard of it, take a peek,” Geerke said. “Don’t show it to your kids. I don’t want them reading it and getting upset or asking a lot of questions they aren’t ready to ask yet.”
At a board meeting this week, Gehrke said he has a list of 39 books with explicit sexual content.
“I was shocked and surprised,” she said. “Some of the books in circulation, looking only at the high school level now, are rated ‘adult’, which is obviously quite concerning. More suitable for school-age children.” I’m hoping that I might be able to leave things there. ”
Another parent named Stephanie, a parent of two high school students, objected in public comment.
“I was reading it and there’s some sexual content, but there’s a bigger point in the book,” she said. It’s a story about girls who ask where they stand in society and what their role is…The fact that 39 more books are being debated bothers me.”
Ryan Yuengar
ryany@wsjm.com
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