'We're not going to tolerate it.' Hilton superintendent speaks out after second threat
The Hilton Central School District was forced to lock down its schools Friday for the second time this week after receiving another anonymous threat related to materials in its school libraries.
On Friday as on Wednesday, an unnamed person said bombs had been planted at sites around the district, including at schools, in protest against a book in the high school library titled "This Book is Gay."
Law enforcement searched all the buildings in question and found no bombs, and classes resumed as normal by noon Friday. Depending on where they were when the threats were received, students at some schools were locked into their buildings while others had to wait on buses outside their buildings.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, Superintendent Casey Kosiorek reacted with frustration at the renewed threat and said the district would attempt in the future to avoid disruptions for baseless threats while still taking them as seriously as needed.
"We're not going to tolerate it," he said. "These individuals clearly want this disruption to continue. ... Our efforts are going to move forward to keep our students and our staff safe and our community safe."
Capt. Pat Rojas of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said he believed the threats were part of a coordinated campaign coming from outside the community. The emailed threats have come from an email address with a Russian domain.
Kosiorek speculated, however, that recent local challenges to books such as "This Book is Gay" may have caught the attention of outside provocateurs.
A review of board of education minutes show that residents have complained at nearly every recent meeting about LGBTQ issues. In February, for instance, one man asked the board whether "sexual orientation exist(s) in books," while another sought assurances that students were not "exposed to the opposite sex genitalia."
LGBTQ students feel unwelcome
Like other districts across Monroe County and across the country, Hilton has seen a rash of complaints about books in its libraries that deal with race or sexuality. Parents have falsely accused schools and public libraries of exposing children to pornography or "grooming" them for sexual activity.
Local school districts, including Hilton, have generally resisted calls to remove books from libraries, saying it is important for LGBTQ+ students to have materials that reflect their experience. Experts in education and child development have roundly dismissed the calls for book bans as misguided.
In early 2022 Hilton did remove one regularly challenged book, "Gender Queer," not because of its subject matter but because it includes graphic sexual illustrations.
Kosiorek Friday apologized to LGBTQ students in the district for having been made to feel "unwelcome" this week, and said he had asked staff to reach out to individual students to ensure they feel safe.
He defended the value of having books like "This Book is Gay" in the school library, and more broadly having different sexual orientations or gender identities reflected in school.
"For students maybe just learning who they are as a person, maybe uncomfortable going to a parent or going to someone else – they can privately go this literature and they can start to identify, 'Hey, I’m feeling this way; other people feel this way; this is the way I was born as a human being,'" he said.
"We need to remind people this is public education. ... It is extremely important, anything we can do, whether through the literature selection that’s optional in our library, to our curriculum that is developed and presented to our students, that students of all different backgrounds, origins and identifications feel welcome."
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Hilton schools disrupted again by bomb threats
