The following is the text from a current draft document entitled Material Reconsideration Guide. It was prepared by Grand Haven Area Public Schools Instructional Services Director Mary Jane Evink and some of the librarians at Grand Haven schools.
The document was prepared in response to parents complaining about explicit sexual material found in books available to students at GHAPS school libraries. It will be given to citizens who complain about GHAPS library and curriculum materials.
This post contains some comments from a parent that appear in bold itallic font.
Please review the GHAPS library mission statement, selection process, ALA Library Bill of Rights, and Freedom to Read Statement before completing the School Materials Reconsideration Form. This is consistent with Board Policy 9130.
GHAPS Library Mission
The mission of the school library is to build a community of independent life-long readers and learners by fostering the spirit of curiosity and choice, by teaching the skills to think critically and creatively, and by providing access to a well-managed, high-quality, diverse collection of resources that meet academic and personal needs.
GHAPS Selection Policy Objectives
Objectives are, of necessity, broad and should relate to the mission of the school and its instructional program. Instructional and library materials are selected by the school district to implement, enrich, and support the educational program and personal interests of each student.
GHAPS School Library Selection Policy Objectives
● To provide faculty and students with age appropriate materials that enrich and support the curriculum and meet the needs of the students and faculty served
● To provide students with a wide range of educational materials on all levels of difficulty and in a variety of formats, with diversity of appeal, allowing for the presentation of many different points of view
● To select materials that present various sides of controversial issues, giving students an opportunity to develop analytical skills resulting in informed decisions
● To select materials in all formats, including accurate, up-to-date, high quality, varied literature to develop and strengthen a love of reading
GHAPS School Library Responsibility for Selection
Although the Board of Education is legally responsible for the resources used in a school, it delegates the selection of the library’s resources to its professional school library personnel. The Board of Education directs the library professional, Scott Grimes works for the GHAPS school board. All other GHAPS personnel work for Scott therefore this statement goes against board policy. as part of their professional duties, to seek recommendations, stay current with trends in the wider library/education community, and work collaboratively with others in the school community during the selection process. Teachers, students, administrators, and others participate by making recommendations; the final responsibility for the selection decisions rests with the school library professional.
GHAPS School Library Selection Criteria
School library media specialists select materials for the library using a combination of criteria in order to establish a well-rounded, diverse collection. Maintaining a balanced collection requires an ongoing process of evaluation, acquisition, and weeding. Consideration and reconsideration is a part of that ongoing process.
Selection Criteria
Materials are selected to:
● Support and enrich the curriculum and/or students’ personal interests and learning
● Meet high standards in literary, artistic, and aesthetic quality; technical aspects; and physical format
● Fill gaps in the collection (topics or authors) to provide a more balanced and complete collection
● Be appropriate for the subject area and for the age, ability level, learning styles, and social, emotional, and intellectual development Social-emotional learning is a code word for critical race theory which is a Marxist philosophy that divides people among racial and socioeconomic lines. This adjective should be removed. of the students for whom the materials are selected
● Incorporate accurate and authentic factual content from authoritative sources
● Earn favorable reviews in standard reviewing sources and/or favorable recommendations based on preview and examination of materials by professional personnel
● Exhibit a high degree of potential user appeal and interest
● Represent differing viewpoints on controversial issues
● Provide a global perspective Why is GHAPS pushing a global perspective? and promote diversity Authors should be included because of the content of their work, not because of their racial or sexual background. This statement should be removed. by including materials by authors and illustrators of all cultures
● Include a variety of resources in physical and virtual formats including print and non-print such as electronic and multimedia, including subscription databases and other online products, e-books, educational games, and other forms of emerging technologies
● Demonstrate physical format, appearance, and durability suitable to their intended use
● Balance cost with need
Recommended School Library Reviewing Sources
Not all items purchased have a review, nor does a review determine the acquisition of an item.
● Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Notable Children’s Books
● Booklist
● School Library Journal
● We Need Diverse Books website
● Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Best Books for Young Adults
● Common Sense Media
● Kirkus Reviews
GHAPS Acquisitions Procedures in School Libraries
The school librarian is responsible for creating a collection to support instruction, literacy, and students’ recreational reading. The library professional will seek input from teachers, other professional staff, and students. School librarians are also responsible for weeding or de-selecting collection materials following policy guidelines as well as making a decision as to whether gift items will be accepted.
GHAPS School Library Acquisitions Procedures
● In selecting learning resources, professional There is a hyperfocus on credentials and a tendency to discount parents who do not have teaching backgrounds. personnel will evaluate available resources and curriculum needs and will consult reputable, professionally prepared aids to selection, and other appropriate sources. The actual resource will be examined whenever possible.
● Gift materials shall be judged by the selection criteria and shall be accepted or rejected by those criteria.
● Selection is an ongoing process that should include removing materials that are no longer used or needed, adding materials, and replacing lost and worn materials that still have educational value.
GHAPS Selecting Materials on Controversial Topics in School Libraries
The majority of users served in school libraries are minors, and American society is often very protective of its youth. These two facts create challenges for school librarians selecting materials on a range of perspectives on topics which may be considered controversial by some in the school community. Hot button topics that may be deemed controversial and offensive to some range from LGBTQ-themed resources to politics, race relations, and sexually explicit language. Court decisions including Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) established that minors do have First Amendment rights in schools including the right to receive information. Ethically, school librarians find guidance for selecting resources which may be considered controversial in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, the American Library Association’s Code of Ethics, and the Freedom to Read Statement. Therefore, school librarians are ethically responsible to provide access to resources with varying perspectives for students’ curricular and personal information needs. Public school librarians must balance access and protection due to the wide variety of student experiences, backgrounds, maturity levels, and reading abilities.
American Library Association Library Bill of Rights
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.
Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961;
June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; January 29, 2019.
Inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.
The Freedom to Read Statement
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.
Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.
These efforts at suppression are related to a larger pattern of pressures being brought against education, the press, art and images, films, broadcast media, and the Internet. The problem is not only one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast by these pressures leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary curtailment of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy or unwelcome scrutiny by government officials.
Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of accelerated change. And yet suppression is never more dangerous than in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the United States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path of novel and creative solutions, and enables change to come by choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy and difference.
Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. The written word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. It is essential to the extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.
We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend. We believe that every American community must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians have a profound responsibility to give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.
The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with faith in free people will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.
We therefore affirm these propositions:
1. It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority.
Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different. The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept that challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times like these. We need to know not only what we believe but why we believe it.
2. Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated. Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought. The people should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.
3. It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author. No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
4. There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression. To some, much of modern expression is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet the diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed, as they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically for themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not to be discharged simply by preventing them from reading works for which they are not yet prepared. In these matters values differ, and values cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised that will suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.
5. It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or its author as subversive or dangerous. The ideal of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for others. It presupposes that individuals must be directed in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. But Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.
6. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and by the government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public access to public information.
It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an individual or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual or group. In a free society individuals are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read, and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to its freely associated members. But no group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the accepted and the inoffensive. Further, democratic societies are more safe, free, and creative when the free flow of public information is not restricted by governmental prerogative or self-censorship.
7. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a "bad" book is a good one, the answer to a "bad" idea is a good one.
The freedom to read is of little consequence when the reader cannot obtain matter fit for that reader's purpose. What is needed is not only the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and said. Books are the major channel by which the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing and growth. The defense of the freedom to read requires of all publishers and librarians the utmost of their faculties, and deserves of all Americans the fullest of their support.
We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of the written word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.
This statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the Westchester Conference of the American Library
Association and the American Book Publishers Council, which in 1970 consolidated with the American
Educational Publishers Institute to become the Association of American Publishers.
Adopted June 25, 1953, by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read Committee; amended January 28,
1972; January 16, 1991; July 12, 2000; June 30, 2004.
GHAPS Procedures for Handling Formal Material Complaints
The following procedures should be followed if, after discussing the questioned resource, no resolution is made.
1. The complainant should be referred and submitted to the principal of the school(s) in which the item is available to its students.
2. A concerned citizen who is dissatisfied with earlier informal discussions will be offered a packet of materials which includes the library’s mission statement, selection policy, request for reconsideration of instructional resources form, and the Library Bill of Rights.
3. The complainant is required to complete and submit the reconsideration form to the principal, who will notify the superintendent, the curriculum director, building media specialist, and the library department head.
4. The work in question will remain on library shelves and in circulation until a formal decision is made.
5. The Reconsideration Committee will be appointed by the principal and consist of the curriculum director, at least one teacher representing grade level and content area, a school librarian, the library department chair, at least one parent, and a student when appropriate. It is suggested that a Board of Education trustee sit on the committee and an adult of the complainant’s choice. There must be an odd number of committee members. This will result in committees where the number of school personnel greatly outnumber concerned parents. Parents will be effectively silenced. This needs to be altered.
6. The district will provide copies of the questioned material for the committee.
7. The committee will be asked to review mission, selection criteria, Library Bills of Rights, Freedom to Read Statement, the completed reconsideration form, the reviews, awards and honors if they exist. The committee will be asked to set aside their own personal beliefs to objectively review the material. The personal beliefs of community members matter? At least that is what we hear from the board and the Director of Instructional Services. Why do they need to set aside their personal beliefs? Is this because they do not have professional educational degrees? The committee will be asked to evaluate values, faults and form an opinion based on the material as a whole. Value offered by a book does not make inappropriate portions of that book acceptable. Inappropriate material can harm children. They cannot unsee or unread something.
8. The district goal is to schedule an initial meeting with the material reconsideration committee within 10 days of the submitted reconsideration form. If multiple requests are submitted, more days may be needed.
9. The Material Reconsideration Committee should follow the procedures listed below:
● At the initial meeting, the committee will review reconsideration committee guidelines and procedures.
● A member of the committee should keep minutes.
● All committee members should fully review the resource (read or view the entire work) before voting.
● The committee reserves the right to use outside expertise if necessary to help in its decision-making process.
● Deliberations will only take place by committee members in committee meetings. If the public has complaints, the public deserves to be heard and should be allowed to participate.
● During the initial or subsequent meetings, the committee will make its decision determined by the simple majority to retain, move the resources to a different level, or remove the resource.
This will be a secret ballot vote. Secret is the opposite of transparent.
● The committee's written decision (including a minority report if needed) shall be presented to the complainant, the superintendent of schools, and the Board of Education within five school days after the decision is made.
● The Material Reconsideration Committee will make a recommendation to the superintendent and his/her decision will be final. The board should have the final say, not the superintendent. This does not agree with policy 9130. The superintendent will notify the complainant and the Board of Education of the decision.
● Decisions on reconsidered materials will stand for five years before new requests for reconsideration of those items will be entertained. Five years is a problem. What if other people have concerns?
● GHAPS School Materials Reconsideration Form is below.
GHAPS School Materials Reconsideration Form
The Board of Education of Grand Haven Area Public Schools has delegated the responsibility for selection and evaluation of library/educational resources to the school library professional staff/curriculum committee, and has established reconsideration procedures to address concerns about those resources. Completion of this form is the first step in those procedures. If you wish to request reconsideration of school or library resources, please return the completed form to the Director of Instructional Services. Is the Director of Instructional Services in charge or is the principal in charge? If you need more space for your answers, you may attach additional pages as necessary.
Name __________________________________________________________
Address ________________________________________________________
City ____________________________ State/Zip _______________________
Phone __________________________ Email __________________________
Do you represent yourself? ______ Or an organization? ______
Name of Organization __________________________________
1. Title of Challenged Material:_______________________________________________________
Author/Producer __________________________________________________________________
2. Is the resource part of the curriculum, library collection, or other?
3. What brought this resource to your attention? - This is irrevelent if material is inappropriate and is an attempt to further silence parents from raising future concerns.
4. Have you read the entire resource? If not, what sections did you read? Be specific.
5. What concerns you about the resource? (Please be specific, cite page numbers).
6. What value is there in this work?
7. What do you feel might be the result of reading, viewing, or listening to this work?
8. For what age group would you recommend this work?
9. Are you aware of the judgment of this work by critics? If a citizen objects to a work, the judgment of a critic is irrelevant.
10. What do you believe is the theme or purpose of this work?
11. Are there resource(s) you suggest to provide additional information and/or other viewpoints on this topic? This is not the job of the person complaining that a work is inappropriate for children. This is the job of GHAPS personnel.
12. What action are you requesting the committee consider?
13. In its place, what work of equal value would you recommend that would convey as valuable a picture and perspective of a society or set of values? This is not the job of the person complaining that a work is inappropriate for children. This is the job of GHAPS personnel.
Signature of the complainant Date