The Polk County School Board will purchase 37,000 books for new school libraries, including 14 books identified by conservative groups as containing topics inappropriate for school-aged children, including “Marxist critical race theory” and “pornographic” content.
A majority of the Polk County School Board voted Tuesday to authorize the purchase so new school libraries can open on time for next school year at the C-21 elementary school and Scenic Terrace K-8 school.
The Board had delayed the purchase of the books during its December meeting to give citizens time to review the content of the books. The approval of the purchase by a 6-1 vote now puts into motion another 30-day period for the community to challenge books that they find unacceptable as outlined in an established Polk schools district procedure.
It’s a procedure that the Florida Legislature is currently studying for use in other districts statewide, the district administration said.
Before the vote at the district’s administration building in Bartow, the public and board members deliberated on the process for developing book lists, the book challenge procedure, and what constitutes inappropriate materials, among other details. Members of the conservative groups asked the board to delay the vote until February.
Before casting the lone no-vote, former physical education teacher and freshman School Board member Rick Nolte used the analogy of the range of foul calls made by different basketball officials during a game. Some call every infraction, others call nothing, he said.
“A lot of this is judgment calls,” he said. “What is grey to one person, might be brown to another.”
The School Board members had only received the list of 14 objectionable books and reviews of those titles in the hours between the regularly scheduled meeting and its work session held earlier Tuesday, leaving Nolte to say he had not had time to look at the list.
Shaking his head at the situation, he added, “We’ve got so many good books out there that. Books like we don’t really look as close as we need to, like, not really books, but the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, all those good things; and we’re debating over some books that are marginal. So, I don’t know, it’s gonna be interesting.”
The books in question
The list of the 14 books in question. According to an email from a district spokesman, the County Citizens Defending Freedom has objected to the following:
- “The Neptune Project” by Polly Holyoke
- “Gorilla Dawn” by Gilla Lewis
- “Be Light Like a Bird” by Monica Schroder
- “Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl” by John Putnam Demos and Harry N. Abrams
- “Orphan Train” by Christina Baker Kline
- “Roman Diary: The Journal of Iliona of Mytilini” by Richard Platt
- “Maximilian Fly” by Angie Sage
- “Dead Boy” by Laurel Gale
- “Stamped (For Kids)” by Sonja Cherry-Paul
- “Choose Justice” by Maribel Valdez Gonzalez
- “Equality, Social Justice and Our Future” by Sabrina Adams
- “The Racial Justice Movement” by Kara Laughlin
- “Rise Up: How You can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy” by Crystal Fleming
- “Athletes for Social Justice: Colin Kaepernick, Lebron James, and More” by Dolores Andral
- “Peace Activism” by Virginia Loh-Hagan
During public comments, members of the Polk County chapter of the CCDF said their list is now longer. A total of 20 books were objectionable. They also said their citizen reviewers only had time to examine 15,000 books of the 37,000 to be purchased and that’s why they wanted to delay the vote another 30 days.