After school bars elementary student reading, school board wants to know of book challenges
After a controversial decision by a Miami Lakes public school to bar elementary students from reading three books and the poem read at President Biden’s inauguration, the Miami-Dade School Board wants to require schools to alert board members and district staff when a complaint results in the reassignment or removal of a title.
In many districts, including Miami-Dade, when a book or title is challenged, only a school-level review committee is required to determine whether a book should remain on shelves. It does not require objections or decisions be known to district-level staff or board members.
The proposal, brought by board member Steve Gallon III, seeks to change that. The updates, according to Gallon, would improve transparency around certain decisions.
“As a board member, I was somewhat miffed to learn about an issue through the media that created a public firestorm and a national embarrassment and debacle,” Gallon said at a school board committee meeting Wednesday. “Are we still wading in the waters of ambiguity and allowing a Pandora’s Box to continue to open without us as a board taking some action regarding this issue?”
READ MORE: Miami-Dade K-8 bars elementary students from 4 library titles following parent complaint
The proposal, which the board is expected to discuss at its monthly board meeting Wednesday, comes after the school district faced national backlash following news of four titles being removed from elementary access and restricted to middle school students at Bob Graham Education Center, a K-8 school in Miami Lakes, after one parent complained.
One of the titles was “The Hill We Climb” by young Black poet Amanda Gorman, now 25, who recited the poem at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Jan. 20, 2021. Her poem celebrates the United States not as a perfect union, but as an unfinished nation that yearns for equity and inclusion. An excerpt reads:
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
The other titles were: “The ABCs of Black History,” “Cuban Kids” and “Love to Langston.”
The district has maintained the titles were not banned, but moved to a different part of the library. On Wednesday, at a School Board committee workshop, Superintendent Jose Dotres reiterated that no policies were violated.
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz also defended the decision, saying “the process worked.”
“A parent has the right to make a complaint. But the process was put into effect and it worked where they deemed the proper placement of the books. And the students still have access to it at the right level. And no books were banned,” he said in an interview with WLRN.
The Miami Herald’s reporting revealed the restrictions. The Washington Post later reported that elementary students would have to prove they read at the fifth-grade level to get the books. Many educators and literacy organizations argue the restrictions limit access to younger students.
Board members caught off guard
Much of the conversation Wednesday centered around board members’ frustration about learning about the incident in the media and feeling caught off guard by the news.
Many board members reiterated that no one made a mistake, staff followed district policy and that the proposed revisions to the policy weren’t meant to lambaste district employees for the decisions that led to the public outcry. Rather, they said, they wanted to improve transparency and communication within the district.
The proposal also requires the district to provide “related training” to staff who address title challenges, such as a rubric or guideline when determining if a title is appropriate. Those policy provisions, Gallon argued, were not implemented properly, and he referenced the “woefully deficient” form and the confusion surrounding what is considered appropriate.
Lawmakers this year expanded on the controversial Parental Rights in Education law that, among other things, makes the process of objecting to books and instructional materials easier. Critics of the law argue it’s vaguely written and doesn’t provide sufficient guidance on what is or isn’t age-appropriate.
“This whole issue of age appropriateness, are we talking about readability, are we talking about understanding, are we talking about content? What are we talking about?,” Gallon asked fellow board members.
READ MORE: Poet speaks up after Miami-Dade school bars elementary students from reading her poem
Roberto Alonso, School Board member for District 4, where the K-8 center is located, said he believes every parent has a right to express their concerns about a title, but he questioned how a decision that happened months ago “all of a sudden come to light in the media and how did the media find out about this?”
Dotres said the information was released through a public records request. Florida law requires much information that affects the community be open to inspection by the public and the media.
Board member Mary Blanco said she’s “not of the opinion that she needs to micromanage everything, but being aware of what was coming down would have been appreciated.”
For her part, Chairwoman Mari Tere Rojas said it’s “imperative that [the board and district] have an open line of communication” with the stakeholders, including parents and teachers, but also the media.
“I found out about this like the rest of you,” she told board members of learning about the news in the media. “So anything we can enhance [the process] as we move forward is extremely important and beneficial to everyone and that’s what I believe this item is doing.”
