Carroll school board asks for public input on defining ‘sexually explicit content’

Carroll County’s Board of Education is asking community members to comment on proposed revisions to the school system’s policy on selection, evaluation and adoption of instructional materials. The revisions seek to define “sexually explicit content,” in order to ensure such content is not included in school materials.

County residents may submit their comments on the proposed revisions online at https://bit.ly/3RJEYFv or send them by mail to the Superintendent’s Office, Carroll County Public Schools, 125 N. Court St., Westminster, MD 21157.

During its Oct. 11 meeting, the board directed school system staff to “review Board Policy IIAA: Selection, Evaluation, and Adoption of Instructional Materials and develop potential revisions to the policy that include a definition of sexually explicit content in an effort to provide clarification and avoid ambiguity.”

Board of Education member Steve Whisler made the motion during new business; the topic was not on the school board’s agenda for the October monthly meeting.

“I’d like to make a motion that we ask staff to review Policy IIAA, to consider including a provision in there that restricts explicit sexual content in our instructional materials,” Whisler said in October. “I’d suggest that we consider a clear definition of explicit sexual content and have that derived from federal and state laws and FCC [Federal Communications Commission] decency standards.”

The proposed policy revisions state that, aside from materials approved for instruction related to family life and human development, all other instructional materials “shall not contain sexually explicit content.” The policy revisions further define “sexually explicit content” as “unambiguously describing, depicting, showing, or writing about sex or sex acts in a detailed or graphic manner.”

The board is scheduled to review the proposed revisions and take action on them at its next meeting Jan. 10.

Whisler said in October that an update to the instructional materials policy would ensure, “a backstop so we can make sure instructional materials and supplemental materials do not include explicit sexual activity or explicit sexual content. It doesn’t necessarily have to relate to state requirements or state curriculum, I just wanted to see if the staff could come to us with a recommendation.”

The motion was seconded by board member Donna Sivigny, who said at the time that she wanted to, “discuss it a little further.”

School board student representative Sahithya Sudhakar, a senior at Liberty High School, said “sexually explicit content” is a vague term, especially for works of literature.

“It’s a very vague term for a lot of us and can be stated in simple undertones when you’re reading any passage of text, versus explicitly describing the act, so how exactly would you formulate some type of method of finding this?” asked Sudhakar, who as a student member of the board is allowed to comment on issues before the panel but does not have the authority to vote.

Board of Education President Marsha Herbert said in October that a discussion about adding language to the instructional materials policy should help clarify what books and instructional materials are too sexually explicit for schools.

“We just need a clear, concise definition,” Herbert said. “I think that will help a lot, and I think that will clear a lot of things up.”

In early November, it was announced that the Carroll County Public Schools Reconsideration Committee had recommended retention of five more of the 58 books that Superintendent Cynthia McCabe ordered removed from library shelves in September amid challenges from the Carroll County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that advocates for “parental rights” in schools.

The committee recommended retention of “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison; “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Housieni; “Shine,” by Lauren Myracle; “Homegoing,” by Yaa Gyasi; and “The Freedom Writers Diary,” by Erin Gruwell in school libraries.

As of last month, decisions had been made on 15 of the 58 challenged books in Carroll.

Last month Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Nicholas Shockney reversed the committee’s September decision to retain “Tilt,” by Ellen Hopkins; “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky; “The Sun and her Flowers,” by Rupi Kaur; and “Not that Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture,” by Roxane Gay, following an appeal. Shockney said high school students may still check out these four titles, but only with parental permission.

Although the committee decided to retain “Sex is a Funny Word,” by Cory Silverburg, Shockney said he decided, as the superintendent’s designee, to ban the book outright from inclusion in school libraries after the committee’s decision was appealed.

The committee’s decision to retain “Damsel,” by Elana Arnold, and “Perfect,” by Ellen Hopkins, was not appealed. Shockney said he upheld the committee’s decision to retain “Slaughterhouse-Five,” by Kurt Vonnegut in high schools, but remove the book from middle schools when an appeal was filed.

“A Court of Thorns and Roses,” by Sarah Maas, and “Water for Elephants,” by Sara Gruen, were both banned from school shelves by a decision of the Reconsideration Committee.

Age appropriateness and sexually explicit content were given as reasons for decisions to remove books, according to decision letters sent to each appellate.