Parent files first formal complaint over questionable books
Posted on Saturday, August 6, 2005
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/30885/
A Fayetteville parent who claims Fayetteville Public School libraries contain too many sexually explicit books has filed her first formal complaint for the 2005-2006 school year.
This week, Laurie Taylor filed a formal request for reconsideration on the novel "Push" by author Sapphire.
In her request, Taylor said she read the entire book and listed some of the written passages she found objectionable. The book is listed as an offering in the Fayetteville High School library.
A summary of the book on another Web site says it is about a 16-year-old girl, pregnant because her father raped her, who "meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption."
Taylor has argued in recent months that the school board needs to conduct an "audit" of the library system, appoint a parent-led committee to review future purchases and place books with explicit language and images in a restricted section. Students could only then check out such materials with parental consent, she suggested.
Taylor has been gathering signatures on a petition to consider those ideas, and she claims she has several hundred signatures from district residents. The Fayetteville School Board made no response when she mentioned the petition at its July meeting.
This summer Taylor has released a list of 54 books she claims should be reviewed, but she has indicated her final list will have 70 or more titles.
Board president Steve Percival sent an e-mail to Taylor on July 29 recommending she follow the district’s policy on reviewing individual library book complaints. He also suggested she could file a patron complaint on the district’s overall approach to library books if she wants to. "If you have concerns about specific books, the (policy manual) has a procedure in it that needs to be followed in order to get the district to review the material," he wrote.
Under the district policy, once a request is submitted an appointed "materials evaluation committee" is set up to review the work and make a recommendation on whether or not it should be retained in school libraries.
The policy was admittedly designed to address occasional complaints, though, and not a broad list of books at once, Percival said.
Taylor responded to Percival’s request by filing the formal complaint on "Push," but she did comment that evaluating the books this way is very time consuming. She also noted that if the district follows policy by purchasing books for each committee member to read, then evaluating all 70 books could cost $5,000, she said. "This seems very unrealistic for such a common-sense problem," she wrote. "We don’t really have a policy that’s a hand-in-glove fit for what she wants to do," Percival said.
The most appropriate thing would be for Taylor to follow the current policies in place as best she can, he said.
Superintendent Bobby New could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon but he has said he plans to discuss Taylor’s concerns with school librarians after they return to work later this month.
Last school year, Taylor filed three formal requests to remove the books "It’s Perfectly Normal," " It’s So Amazing" and "The Teenage Guy’s Survival Guide." On a mixed vote of 4-3, the school board modified the review committee’s recommendation to place most of those books in the parent library, without student access in most circumstances.