District hosting public meetings to discuss boundaries, books
Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2005
The Fayetteville School District will host two meetings, one Tuesday and another the following Tuesday, to discuss two ongoing issues.
The Tuesday meeting will be the second public input session for residents to issue comments on the "enrollment distribution project,"the administration's effort to redraw school attendance zones for the 2006-07 school year. A previous input session was held in August.
The meeting will start at 5:30 p.m. at the Judy Mackey Center in the Fayetteville High School Bates Annex. According to a district press release," The purpose of the meeting is to receive public comment on the progress the project team has made. More information on the Enrollment Distribution Project may be found at www. fayar. net."
On Tuesday, Sept. 13, the Fayetteville School Board will hold a special public meeting in the Fayetteville High School auditorium to discuss the ongoing library book issues, according to board president Steve Percival.
The purpose of the meeting will be to hear from district patrons on the library book challenge. More details about the meeting and its format are forthcoming.
The content of certain books in school libraries, and whether student access to such books should be restricted, has been an ongoing issue for the past several months.
Local parent Laurie Taylor filed three formal complaints last year on specific books. This summer, she alleged district libraries had more than 70 books with sexually explicit content and released the titles of 54 such books to the media.
She also recently filed a formal complaint on the book "Push."
Since Taylor began her campaign, school board meetings have been crowded by those who support and oppose the removal or restriction of such books.
At the school board's regular August meeting, Percival said controversy over the library books was dragging on and getting too antagonistic, so the issue needed to be addressed.
He announced a plan to hold a public "town hall"meeting in the FHS auditorium to allow residents a chance to speak on the issue. The board should then hold a special meeting to make a decision on how to handle the matter, he said.
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