Little boy aged 5 is secretly reading book under sheets using smartphone light.
Opt out requirement for students to read or take out books prompts school librarian’s resignation
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Scott LaMar
Little boy aged 5 is secretly reading book under sheets using smartphone light.
Airdate: December 20, 2022
Restricting the books that students have access to in school libraries has become one of the battlegrounds in the culture wars being fought throughout the country. Hundreds of school boards, including some in our region, have faced angry parents who have singled out a book or books they don’t want their kids to read or that they find inappropriate.
The American Library Association reports there were 729 attempts to ban or restrict library resources in 2021.
The Donegal School District in Lancaster County sought to implement guidelines that would require permission from the parents of middle school students to read or sign out books designated as young adult titles.
In response, Donegal Junior High School librarian Matthew Good resigned his position in November. He appeared on The Spark Tuesday and explained why,”During last school year, when we started to see an increase in book challenges (nationally), I was asked to draft a policy that would allow parents to opt their child out of certain books. I suppose they didn’t want them to read fantasy books or books that were violent or dealt with sexual content. And I drafted that policy, and then they had a change of mind and wanted it to be more of a permission form. That said, anybody that wants to check out young adult titles must fill out and have a parent sign this form and turn it in. And that switch is where I felt like students access, students intellectual freedom rights were being challenged.”
Good indicated Donegal has had only a few occasions when a book would be questioned by a parent or group, but what was happening nationally influenced his decision to quit,”I think somebody spoke at a board meeting and we had one or two, two parent complaints about books, but nothing like we’ve seen in other districts or on the national scale where parents were coming to school board meetings or all sorts of submissions of these challenges. Yeah, it was primarily in reaction to what they were seeing elsewhere and wanting to essentially get ahead of any issue that might come up.”
