There are sexually explicit books in the GHAPS libraries! Spring Lake schools and many schools across the country have a similar issue. Last week the Spring Lake school district made local media when the board voted to have the book Gender Queer placed with counselors and be made accessible to students with parental consent. Although I’m not convinced the Spring Lake school board members fully understand this issue, they are on the right track and made the right decision when they voted in favor of parental consent.
Grand Haven school district leaders claim that parents have control over whether or not their children have access to similar material in school libraries, but this claim is false. As a GHAPS parent you have two options for protecting your children from school library books that you feel are inappropriate. You can have your child’s library privileges removed, or you can provide the school with a list of titles that your child is not allowed to check out. Unfortunately, both of these solutions are insufficient. The first option will ostracize your child and completely eliminate his/her ability to check out books. The second option requires you to be familiar with all titles available in the library and keep on top of the schools ever changing inventory. In addition, your child can read any library book without checking it out if they have time to spend in the library. (To find out if a particular title is available in any of the school libraries visit the Destiny Library Catalog at one of the two links below. You do not need to login to search –)
As a citizen you have no way to protect children from the potential harm of reading an inappropriate library book at GHAPS. You shouldn’t need to do this as it is the school’s job. School administrators argue they are protecting vulnerable children by providing them with characters in books and information in books that they can relate to while dismissing sexually explicit content within these books. Parents argue sexually explicit content is not appropriate for schools regardless of what characters are described in the book. If a book has any redeeming quality, administrators simply ignore the potential harmful sections included in the book. This is like offering a child a sports magazine that has a few pages of pornography slipped in. If you can’t read the book out loud to a child at the bus stop, the book shouldn’t be in a school library. School administrators fail to see the potential harm these books can have on innocent children who happen to come across them while browsing the library. The schools are not protecting these children, but instead offering them the opportunity to read potentially harmful material.
This video: Queer A Graphic History - School Administrators and Parents Discuss Book clearly shows the disconnect between school officials and parents.
Another problem with the current process is that parents are responsible for identifying sexually explicit books and then initiating the “Reconsideration Process”. The process is set-up to keep all library books because challenged books are reviewed by teams hand-picked by the curriculum director and comprised of a teacher, administrator, librarian and one parent. This is exactly what happened in Spring Lake. The sexually explicit book Gender Queer was reviewed by a team who determined it to be appropriate for the school libraries. The board did not require parental consent for children to view this book until approximately 300 parents attended a school board meeting to protest the committee’s decision.
This scenario has played itself out across the country and parents who challenge books are commonly said to be “book banning.” This is an incorrect use of this phrase. Parents and citizens concerned about this issue do not want these books banned from society, but believe these books are inappropriate in a school setting. Schools do not own copies of all available books. Therefore, a book not available in a school library is not a banned book.
Another problem with the current process is that books are addressed one at a time. While this process may work well to flag one or two problematic books in a large library, this is not the case with current school libraries. Rather, if a school has one of these inappropriate books it is likely not an isolated incident, but a symbol that something is wrong within all district libraries. Removing one offending book will not resolve the issue.
What should happen is that Grand Haven, Spring Lake and schools across the country with this issue should create a team of parents, teachers and librarians to review all books within their libraries and rate them for appropriateness. Luckily, some parents have already begun to do this. RatedBooks.org has rated dozens of books commonly found in school libraries and is a great resource to begin this task. Once books are rated, instead of districts expecting parents to be familiar with all school library books, schools should create categories based on the ratings. Then parents should be asked if they consent to their children reading sexually explicit books at the beginning of the school year.
Current GHAPS administration and school board members were notified over three years ago of this issue. Parents in Grand Haven filled board meetings before Covid shut down schools. Grand Haven school leadership has stated these books are age appropriate and should remain in the school libraries. Until new leadership is in place at GHAPS this issue will continue.