Conservative Kansas state school board members allege teachers are giving students 'smut'

A Kansas State Board of Education presentation on book bans and removals at the local school district level quickly devolved into a debate on “smut” being forced on students.

Republican board members, throughout the presentation and at other points during the board’s Tuesday meeting, raised concerns with items they said they’d heard are being taught or presented to Kansas students.

Other board members took issue with the line of questioning, however, arguing that the Republican board members were unfairly insinuating that teachers are putting inappropriate material in front of students.

Kansas delegates decisions on controversial books to local school boards

At the state level, few laws or policies restrict the content that Kansas schools and teachers are allowed to present to their students, state education department officials explained to the board.

One statute prohibiting the promotion of obscenity to minors specifically has a carveout for teachers who may, in an educational context, show or teach lessons on material that may be considered obscene elsewhere.

Instead, most decisions on specific curricula and material are left to local boards.

Many adopt policies, often modeled after model language created by the Kansas Association of School Boards, on the processes for schools to obtain and build their book and material collections.

Most school librarians look to national organizations for guidance, such as the American Librarians Association, or lists like the Caldecott or William Allen White children’s book awards for guidance in building their collections.

KASB’s recommended policies also usually outline the processes for parents or other community members to challenge potentially controversial or inappropriate materials.

Those policies tend to encourage a concerned parent or community member to first voice their issue at the lowest level, with the school librarian, before escalating to principals, then to superintendents, then to school boards.

Other recommended policies include procedures for parents to opt their children out of lessons or mandatory reading they may find objectionable, with processes for teachers to provide alternative lessons.

Michelle Dombrosky, an Olathe Republican on the board, explained to other board members she had used a similar policy in opting her son out of a book her family wasn't sure about.

She emphasized that those types of discussions should start at the local level.

“I always tell people, and they always want a form, that they can take in (an objection) on a paper towel,” Dombrosky said. “It’s exercising parents’ authority to be well-informed parents and talk with the principal, and probably the teacher (first).”

Danny Zeck says Kansas school standard is 'teaching smut in the classroom'

Other Republican board members said they were disturbed by the books they had heard are in Kansas schools from their constituents.

Dennis Hershberger, a Republican elected to the state board last year, said state academic standards and desired outcomes should be modeled on “moral, good citizenship.”

“We want good history, we want authentic history taught,” Hershberger said. “We want proper training in how biological sex is actually formed, and not just ideology. These are the things we’re hearing out in the field from parents, and I think some of what we’re seeing in the kids’ lives is we don’t want to create problems.

“We don’t want to create confusion,” he continued. “I see education as being the one tool we have in the public realm for truth (and) giving a good description of what a balanced life can be like when you grow up.”

Earlier in the meeting, Danny Zeck, a Republican from Leavenworth, had interrupted a discussion on rehauling the state process for evaluating and accrediting schools.

Ann Mah, a Democratic board member from Topeka, told him the board wasn't yet discussing school books and materials but instead the statewide standards librarians and media specialists use as models for local lessons.

“That’s a standard to me — that we’re teaching smut in the classroom,” Zeck said, pulling out several books he alleged are being taught to students in Kansas schools.

The books included the following:

• “My Princess Boy,” a 2009 children’s book about a boy who prefers “girly” things.

• “Jamie is Jamie,” another children’s book that encourages breaking down traditional norms on gender.

• “Rick,” another young adult book about a middle schooler who begins to learn about his asexuality.

He also read an excerpt from “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” a young adult book about a misfit teen who struggles with his identity as a Native American in a predominantly white school.

The excerpt included a passage where the protagonist discusses his obsession with masturbation — language Zeck argued would be rated R were it a movie instead of a book.

Kansas state school board: Book challenges should be left at local level

Zeck said he ordered the books he brought as examples off of Amazon based on titles he had found listed on various Kansas school libraries’ online catalogues. He declined to name the schools but said they weren’t necessarily from his state board district, which covers northeast Kansas.

He later clarified to reporters that he didn't mean to insinuate that Kansas schools or teachers are forcing students to read these banned books.

Rather, Zeck argued that schools should be more proactive in informing parents about potentially controversial books that their students might come across — either in a lesson or in their school libraries — and adopting policies to allow families to opt out of controversial materials.

More: Shawnee Heights among Kansas school districts divided on debate to ban 'inappropriate' library books

“We’re not being up front,” he said. “If parents are OK with — (and this is) my word for it — smut, then I’m OK with that. But I’d like the parents to know ahead of time that one, this stuff is in our libraries, and two, we could be reading that to your child that’s in second grade.”

As far as the books he brought as examples, he admitted he had not checked if the school libraries in question had such notification or opt-out policies.

The board took no action after the presentation, which was strictly informational.

Mah, the Topeka Democrat, said it would be futile for the board to try to tackle the issue from a state level.

More: A Kansas library is in the middle of a debate on LGBTQ books. Its lease is now in jeopardy

She said people often clamor for local control, until they don’t.

“We can’t write guidelines to cover everything that comes up,” Mah said. “We’re not going to write that level of detail here. That’s local control, and I think the guidelines we have are really good.”

Jim Porter, a retired superintendent and moderate Republican from Fredonia, said he was concerned the board, in simply having Tuesday's discussion, could be seen as inaccurately indicting librarians and teachers of exposing kids to inappropriate materials.

“There may be things that show up that are inappropriate, and I’m not in any way defending that,” Porter said. “But I believe the vast majority of the people who are presenting information to our students are conscientious people who want what’s best for kids.”

Editor's note: A previous version of this story misidentified the sexual orientation of the protagonist of "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian."

Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at ‪785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas State Board of Education discusses book bans and challenges