Polk School Board agrees to buy books for new libraries as conservative groups protest

The Polk County School Board will purchase 37,000 books for new school libraries, including 14 books identified by conservative groups as containing topics inappropriate for school-aged children, including "Marxist critical race theory" and "pornographic" content.

A majority of the Polk County School Board voted Tuesday to authorize the purchase so new school libraries can open on time for next school year at the C-21 elementary school and Scenic Terrace K-8 school.

The Board had delayed the purchase of the books during its December meeting to give citizens time to review the content of the books. The approval of the purchase by a 6-1 vote now puts into motion another 30-day period for the community to challenge books that they find unacceptable as outlined in an established Polk schools district procedure.

It’s a procedure that the Florida Legislature is currently studying for use in other districts statewide, district administration said.

Before the vote at the district’s administration building in Bartow, the public and board members deliberated on the process for developing book lists, the book challenge procedure and what constitutes inappropriate materials, among other details. Members of the conservative groups asked the board to delay the vote until February.

Before casting the lone no-vote, former physical education teacher and freshman School Board member Rick Nolte used the analogy of the range of foul calls made by different basketball officials during a game. Some call every infraction, others call nothing, he said.

“A lot of this is judgment calls,” he said. “What is grey to one person, might be brown to another.”

The School Board members had only received the list of 14 objectionable books and reviews of those titles in the hours between the regularly scheduled meeting and its work session held earlier Tuesday, leaving Nolte to say he had not had time to look at the list.

Shaking his head at the situation, he added, “We've got so many good books out there that. Books like we don't really look as close as we need to, like, not really books, but the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, all those good things; and we're debating over some books that are marginal. So, I don't know, it's gonna be interesting.”

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The books in question

The Ledger requested a list of the 14 books. According to an email from a district spokesman, the County Citizens Defending Freedom has objected to the following:

• "The Neptune Project" by Polly Holyoke

• "Gorilla Dawn" by Gilla Lewis

• "Be Light Like a Bird" by Monica Schroder

• "Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl" by John Putnam Demos and Harry N. Abrams

• "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline

• "Roman Diary: The Journal of Iliona of Mytilini" by Richard Platt

• "Maximilian Fly" by Angie Sage

• "Dead Boy" by Laurel Gale

• "Stamped (For Kids)" by Sonja Cherry-Paul

• "Choose Justice" by Maribel Valdez Gonzalez

• "Equality, Social Justice and Our Future" by Sabrina Adams

• "The Racial Justice Movement" by Kara Laughlin

• "Rise Up: How You can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy" by Crystal Fleming

• "Athletes for Social Justice: Colin Kaepernick, Lebron James and More" by Dolores Andral

• "Peace Activism" by Virginia Loh-Hagan

During public comments, members of the Polk County chapter of the CCDF said their list is now longer. A total of 20 books were objectionable. They also said their citizen reviewers only had time to examine 15,000 books of the 37,000 to be purchased and that’s why they wanted to delay the vote another 30 days.

During deliberations, School Board member Justin Sharpless asked board attorney Wes Bridges and Superintendent Frederick Heid if the administration was complying with Florida statute and established school district procedures.

“Can you tell me if any of the books being considered at all for these collections violate any state statutes and was the process used to select these books consistent with our board policy and state statutes,” Sharpless said.

“I can affirm that yes, we followed the protocol,” Heid said.

At existing schools, the procedure is much less cumbersome than at new schools because the existing media specialists and the school administrators review new additions to their school libraries, he said. At the new schools, however, the new staff for the libraries are new hires and have many more books to catalog and shelve. Those staff were trained as of last week.

Until the staff had been hired, senior administrative staff in the media collections department reviewed and compiled the lists of books to purchase for the libraries. At the December meeting, Heid said that to help citizen reviewers in the community, he had his staff highlight books not already part of library collections in the district.

Of those books, “The overwhelming majority of those titles were science themed or social studies themed titles, he said. "They talked about insects. They talked about weather. They talked about those types of things. So we did not anticipate any challenges for those materials at all.

“You'll also note that none of the previously challenged books were included in these titles,” he said of the new library collections. “At this time, all of these books meet all of the criteria.”

Last year's battle over books

Florida Citizens Alliance and CCDF submitted 16 books for review last year that the groups claimed were “age inappropriate and hypersexualize children, violating numerous Florida Statutes," The Ledger previously reported.

The review committees recommended keeping all 16 books in Polk schools, but with grade-level restrictions on some of them.

The current review of the new library books comes just months after the school district stuck with its opt-out policy, allowing parents to opt out of allowing their children access to certain titles. Community groups such as the CCDF wanted the board to require parents to opt-in to give their children access to any of the 16 books that were challenged last year. But Bridges, the school board attorney, said the move could be seen as limiting access to ideas within the books, and that could violate the community’s First Amendment rights.

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CCDF members later filed complaints to several police agencies across Polk County, but the State Attorney’s Office and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office did not move forward with any charges against the board or superintendent.

As of Wednesday, Kyle Kennedy, the district’s senior coordinator of media relations, said "165 parents total (152 in the first semester, 13 in the second semester) have used the opt-out system this school year. Of that number, 74 (67 in the first semester, seven in the second semester) have opted out of at least one book that was challenged last year."

"The 165 parents account for approximately 0.17% of PCPS families," he said. "The 74 parents who have opted out of at least one challenged book account for approximately 0.076% of PCPS families."

In addition to the 14-book list, Heid said the School Board was provided with comprehensive summaries with at least three reviews conducted on each to justify their presence and or inclusion within the 37,000 books to be purchased.

“There is no protocol to remove books prior to their adoption,” Heid told the board, adding “the state did not provide information or details as to how that was to be done” in the new law.

“It still provides the general public up to 30 days in which to submit a challenge even beyond that 30 days,” he said.

Fielding comments from the public

Before the superintendent fielded questions from the board, students and conservative advocates voiced their views.

An 11-year-old Denison Middle School student was among the people who took to the microphone to defend books that have been challenged in schools on a variety of topics often opposed by conservative groups.

Wearing a pink blazer with a blue shirt underneath bearing a rainbow, the student quoted the often-banned book entitled “Don Quixote” to make a point that all things are possible despite evidence to the contrary, speaking the relevant passage in both English and Spanish.

“That is what students need today, they need books that represent them, that tell them all the things that they can accomplish, all the things that they can be,” the student said.

“With the state passing laws that tell LGBTQ-plus youth we are not valid, with whitewashing and removal of real history from a classroom, so much evidence is telling marginalized communities, especially young people here in Florida, that we don't matter, that we can't do things,” she said. “We need to believe in ourselves now more than ever."

She said books need to represent minorities as heroes, as well as heroes who are transgender, poor, disabled, female and from marginalized populations. The student said this aligns with the vision posted to the Polk County Schools website.

“Please don't stifle that,” the student said. “Please don't tell us what we can't be in times when the very state we live in is telling us all the things that we can't be.”

During public comment, residents from Winter Haven 9-12, CCDF and other conservative groups rebutted the student’s message.

Retired JROTC teacher Royal Allen Brown III, 75, of Winter Haven, told the School Board to stop allowing books that containing pornography and indoctrinate students.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law House Bill 1467 requiring school boards to adopt procedures to increase scrutiny of library books and instructional materials deemed inappropriate because they had been challenged by the community for containing sexually explicit content, Brown said. Those procedures must include how the district removes and discontinues books and how library employees are trained.

The Polk school district already has this procedure in place and posts the process on its website, and the administration has been invited to visit a committee that advises the Florida Legislature on this topic due to its adoption of this procedure well in advance of the law signed last year, Heid said.

Brown continued, saying Florida law requires all library books and learning materials must be free of pornography and appropriate for the grade levels and age groups of students to which they are made available.

Additional guidelines for employees who select instructional materials, library books and reading lists require "avoiding unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination and includes teaching Marxist critical race theory, which is based on the false premise that our American Society, including our public schools, practice systemic racism, that there are no absolute truths and that individuals are either oppressors or victims," Brown said.

“This is not state sanctioned censorship nor is it about banning books," he said. "It's about ensuring minor children in our public schools are not being provided books and materials that are simply age inappropriate. As our elected School Board members, you must ensure these 30,000-plus books being purchased for these two new school media centers as well as those already in the Polk County public school media system are in compliance with these rules requiring training to scrutinize library books and instructional materials for age appropriateness and to ensure they meet state standards.”

At times, Heid rebuked public comments, especially jabs at the administration’s handling of the book selection and training of media staff. .

“I would say I do take issue with the commentary that the board needs additional assistance with reviewing materials,” he said. “That is what the school district employees are here for and the school district employees do not operate in bad faith to put inappropriate materials in front of students."

In response to accusations by the conservative groups, School Board Member Kay Fields asked Heid, “To your knowledge, do any other books that are being recommended for us to vote on tonight have anything related to CRT in them?”

DeSantis in April signed House Bill 7 that critics said would greatly limit race education in public schools.

The bill titled the "Individual Freedom" measure, bans educators from teaching certain topics related to race, including critical race theory, especially if teachers would make students feel guilty or shameful about their race because of historical events.

Heid answered Fields, saying the concern raised Tuesday was the first he had heard this. In the objections to the 14 titles containing CRT, he said, “That was never mentioned; not once was that mentioned."

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk schools OK books for new libraries amid conservative complaints