Records requests reveal data about LCSD1 book policy use

Apr. 27—CHEYENNE — So far, more than 60% of Laramie County School District 1 parents and guardians have opted to give their children, regardless of grade level, open access to all books in their school library.

Retired Cheyenne attorney George Powers has made several records requests since LCSD1 adopted its library book access policy. Powers provided the Wyoming Tribune Eagle with several documents that were provided as a result of his records request, which showed the names behind several of the early nominations for the sexually explicit book list and how many students will use each of the district's four options for library access in the 2024-25 school year.

As of April 16, a document provided by Powers showed that 10,882 students have had a library access option selected for them. The majority of LCSD1 students, across all age groups, fall into the open access category.

The four options parents can select from are:

— No access to materials containing sexually explicit content;

— Parent/guardian-limited access to such materials (opt-in);

— Open access to all library materials; and

— No access to the library at all.

Before approving the policy in early December, the district automatically opted all students into the library by default and allowed guardians with concerns to opt out and select books they did not want their student reading.

Critics of the original policy, including several LCSD1 Board of Trustees members supportive of the changes, said this meant guardians needed to devote a large amount of time and effort to cull through a vast collection of books to determine what is and isn't appropriate. The current system, where any parent or guardian can nominate a book for review by a team of volunteers and educators, was devised to fix this problem.

Parents can easily access a crowd-sourced list of books, reviewed by parents and staff and then approved by the LCSD1 superintendent, that the district deems inappropriate.

Members of the local political action group Wyoming Family Alliance for Freedom have frequently criticized the policy, saying that the reasons for implementing it portrayed a mistrust of the district's teachers and librarians. When the policy went into a roughly six-and-a-half-week comment period before it was approved last year, a review by the WTE found that around 77% of the comments submitted appeared to oppose these changes and 21% appeared supportive.

Now that parents and guardians must make a definitive choice on their student's behalf, the majority of students appear to be opted into their respective library's complete collection.

Out of a total of 10,882 students, 6,691 are opted into open access, amounting to around 61% of all students. There are 3,743 students who have been selected for the "no access to material containing sexually explicit content" option, around 34% of total students. The parent-limited option was selected for 432 students, and only 16 students in the district had the no-access option selected for them.

From kindergarten through sixth grade, the number of students on the "no access to explicit material" list was closer to proportional with the number of students on the open-access list.

From seventh grade onward, more students had been placed in the open-access option than the "no access to explicit materials" option. The proportion of students given open access at that level outnumbered the number of students opted out of the identified list three-to-one, with 3,632 students given open access and 1,167 opted out of the explicit content.

The LCSD1 Board of Trustees is currently considering revisions to its library material procurement policy that proponents say are designed to keep additional sexually explicit materials from being added to school library collections. Those policy changes are out for a 45-day public comment period that ends May 23. A legal notice from the district said final action will be taken on the issue at a board meeting on June 3.

Samir Knox is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's criminal justice and public safety reporter. He can be reached by email at sknox@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3152. Follow him on X at @bySamirKnox.