Anyone work in districts that are banning books?

[Sbkangas5]

I hear so many different things, and I'd love to hear what is actually, truly happening in classrooms and school libraries. I hear most about Florida, but have read things from a few other states as well. I hate that you can never trust any news source to tell the real story.

 

[Lilbitkm]

I’m in Florida, third grade. We are required to catalog all of our classroom libraries in a format that can be accessed on the school’s website. At my school, our media specialist has been doing this for us but that isn’t the case at most schools. I have over 1,000 books in my classroom (not all of them out all of the time) so I would’ve been taking my books home had the media specialist not offered to do this for us.

As far as banning books, no.
There is a process for people to object to books in a school library but nothing has been objected to or banned that I’m aware of.

ETA: Actually, I know of one book that parents tried to ban in elementary/middle schools (and I actually agreed with the particular book, Gender Queer, not being for those ages) but it wasn’t even in circulation in anything below high school.

 

[Runnergirl04]

I’m also in Florida, and so far, no, at least at the classroom level.

 

[Summerwillcom]

They do not ban books where I live. They do have some inappropriate age level books instead. About 10 years ago, I got new books for a new reading program.
One of the sets was so age inappropriate that I was horrified. 3rd graders do not need to be reading that kind of material. There is so much else to learn in 3rd grade anyways. If the parents would have seen it, they'd have been upset.
I guess I banned the books though because I dumped the class set in the garbage. Nobody ever noticed.

 

[TheGr8Catsby]

They announced we will have to scan and inventory ours. I will be putting on a movie and doing it during class time.

 

[Aderynbach]

In my local district several books were removed from middle and elementary schools due to explicit content. Those books are still in high school libraries but students need parent permission before they can check them out. I agree with this. The books in question (I only remember a couple- Beloved, and Gender Queer) have some graphic, explicit scenes that just aren’t appropriate for ES and MS students. I like that HS students have to have parent permission before checking them out. That way, hopefully, parents can have conversations with their children about the books.

 

[Sbkangas5]

Thanks - it's good to hear what's really happening! I don't know what I think about high school students needing parent permission. Something to ponder...

 

[PoohBear]

I have a friend who works in a district where they had to catalog all of their books and submit them to be approved before they could be out in the classroom. She said many teachers were just taking home their entire libraries rather than deal with that.

 

[Smurfyteach]

I hear so many different things, and I'd love to hear what is actually, truly happening in classrooms and school libraries. I hear most about Florida, but have read things from a few other states as well. I hate that you can never trust any news source to tell the real story.

I’m confused. What is this thread talking about?

 

[PoohBear]

This is the state where my friend teaches.

2022 Library Laws | Teachers log overtime cataloging books as part of parent oversight law

"I don't have time to inventory all these books and post that list online. So my only other option is to close my library to my kids," a teacher said.

www.wbir.com

And here’s a list of books currently being challenged or removed in a Florida county.

Here’s a list of books banned, under review in Central Florida schools

As we enter the latter half of the 2022-23 school year, students and teachers are still seeing people pushing to pull certain books from the shelves within districts across the nation.

www.clickorlando.com

 

[marguerite2]

On Twitter today I saw this about a Florida teacher:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1638860638570070017

 

[Lilbitkm]

I’m confused. What is this thread talking about?

This is the title of the thread:

Anyone work in districts that are banning books?