Sarasota County School District rejects donated dictionaries amid book freeze

Steven Walker, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
·3 min read
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The eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is seen stacked on other dictionaries at the company's headquarters in Springfield, Mass., Tuesday, July 3, 2007.
The eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is seen stacked on other dictionaries at the company's headquarters in Springfield, Mass., Tuesday, July 3, 2007.

Hundreds of dictionaries earmarked for donation from a Venice Rotary Club sit collecting dust, precluded from being given to Sarasota County students. Even dictionaries aren't safe from the Sarasota Schools book freeze.

Ahead of the 2022-23 school year, the Sarasota County School District stopped all donations and purchases of books for school libraries while it waits for additional guidance from the Florida Department of Education about how to navigate the effects of new education laws.

The freeze on book acquisitions in the district is all-encompassing and is expected to last until at least January.

The freeze comes as HB 1467 took effect July 1, requiring all reading material in schools to be selected by an employee with a valid education media specialist certificate. The district was still looking to hire three media specialists to vet books as of Friday.

HB 1467 was an education bill passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The law set term limits for school board members, revised selection requirements for school materials and required meetings related to instructional material to be public.

Gar Reese, a 69-year-old member of the Venice Suncoast Rotary Club, said the club has been donating dictionaries to Sarasota elementary schools for almost 15 years. The group donates to third-graders at Garden Elementary, Taylor Ranch Elementary and Venice Christian, a private school.

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Venice Suncoast Rotary Club's donations are denied

After donating about 300 dictionaries per year and about 4,000 to date, the club for the first time has been denied.

"I would suspect somebody, anyone, could approve a dictionary in less than one minute," Reese said. "Why are we going through all this trouble?"

The club partners with an organization called the Dictionary Project, and Reese said he asked a representative from the group if there were any offensive or obscene words in the dictionaries the group donates. He said there were not.

Pre-kindergarten students at Gocio Elementary take part in the "Bucket Fillers reading initiative under the direction of Embracing Our Differences.
Pre-kindergarten students at Gocio Elementary take part in the "Bucket Fillers reading initiative under the direction of Embracing Our Differences.

Aware of new Florida education laws that have taken effect this summer, Reese said the club's president reached out to the schools' principals before the start of the school year to see if there would be any issues with their donations.

The club was told it would have to contact the district, which told them the donations would have to wait until January.

Reese said he's tried reaching out to the district and School Board members to try to bypass the freeze. He said he first contacted School Board Chair Jane Goodwin on Aug. 5, but no progress has been made on resolving the issue, he said.

Craig Maniglia, the district's director of communications, emphasized that the hold on donations is temporary. The district's educational foundation partners have been contacted and will be kept in the loop on any changes to the freeze, he said.

"Once we receive guidance from our legal team and receive direction from FDOE we will certainly reach out to our education partners with updates," Maniglia said. "We value their support and don't wish to jeopardize the wonderful relationships we have in place."

If the district doesn't let the club donate the books, Reese said it might look toward private schools or just hold off on donating until next year.

"It's really it's just kind of disappointing," Reese said. "Nobody wants to have an argument over a dictionary."

Goodwin, who will retire from the School Board following the upcoming election, said she's turned the issue over to district officials but had not heard back as of Thursday.

Dictionaries being caught in the middle of the freeze is one of the unintended consequences of the new laws passed by the state Legislature and championed by Gov. DeSantis that affect education, she said.

"We have better things to do and spend teachers' and administrators' time on ... than this kind of nonsense," Goodwin said.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota County Schools denies donated Venice Rotary Club's dictionaries