A first reading of a policy to handle complaints about materials available to students in Prescott School District media centers received unanimous board approval at its Feb. 15 meeting.
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PRESCOTT – A first reading of a policy to handle complaints about materials available to students in Prescott School District media centers received unanimous board approval at its Feb. 15 meeting.
Under the policy, if there is a complaint about a book or other material and it can’t be resolved within the building, a committee would review it and decide if the material stays in the media center or not. That decision would stand for five years.
Complaints must come from within the district, as there are national groups trying to get schools nationwide to restrict controversial books from being available to students.
District resident Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson spoke in support of the new policy. She has researched book bans that started in the 2021-22 school year and is described on Every Library Institute as “an independent researcher focused on the networks, organizations and individual actors who are leading book banning and book challenge efforts in our nation’s school libraries and public libraries.”
Magnusson is also a member of the City of Prescott Library Board.
“You all know me as a parent. I also am a national expert in school board policy, especially related to libraries. Since October 2021, I’ve been working with two national organizations to support books and schools and authors and libraries,” she said. “I want to encourage you to move forward with the policy proposed tonight.
“This policy protects First Amendment rights of students and parents and ensures that professionals are deeply engaged with discussion alongside of invested community members. This is a policy that will support, protect and strengthen the Prescott School District libraries.”
Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza said there have only been a handful of complaints about library materials in the last decade, but book removal is a hot-button issue in many nearby school districts.
“If you’re paying attention to national press and what’s happening in the state, although they had no formal challenges in recent years, we’ve kind of handled it informally. Without a formal policy, it would be really hard to figure out how to navigate those waters,” Spicuzza said, referring to if complaints are made.
The policy still needs a second reading by the board at its March meeting to become official.
Under the policy, “Parents of children attending school in the district and district residents may request formal reconsideration of the inclusion of specific material in a school library.”
The complaints cover only library materials and not curriculum-related materials which are already covered in a separate district policy.
Complaints are first directed to a district library media specialist and the building principal to attempt to mediate the process informally.
“If a satisfactory resolution is not reached, requests for consideration of the removal of and library materials shall be submitted in writing to the District Administrator,” the policy states.
The complaint would have to outline “specific concerns upon which the request to consider is based. This should include a specific description of the offending material,” according to the policy.
At that time a Reconsideration Committee will be appointed by the administrator. It will range from six to eight members, including administration from the building where the library is located, two teachers from that school, the school librarian, the district Director of Teaching and Learning and a reading specialist or language arts teacher from the school. It could also include a member of a parent committee and a student.
Discussion last month was to also include a school board member, but that was stricken from the policy. When the committee makes its decision, the person filing the complaint, if they don’t agree, can ask for school board review.
If the committee makes a decision on the book, and there’s no school board appeal, the committee decision is final for five years. The same book won’t be reviewed for that length of time.
Meetings of the Reconsideration Committee would be held in open session.
It was discussed that a student representative would be important to the process, and one could be appointed.
“I think our premise here is we really do want to include student voice. We also recognize that sometimes these committees or challenges can be lacking civility,” he said. “If we said we have to have a student and the student says, ‘I don’t want to be there,’ we would have to force a student to be a part of it for the committee to move forward. We didn’t want to stop the process because a student or the student council says they don’t feel comfortable.”
Board President Mike Matzek asked, “If a book is decided to be banned, and there’s no appeal. What happens after that? Can another person come in and appeal the ban?”
Director of Teaching and Learning Mike Kosmalski answered, “To me, that would be at the five-year mark when it expires. That’s when they could apply to have it back on the shelf.”
Public comment at board meetings
The board unanimously approved a new policy for public comment at board meetings. Under the new policy, the public comment portion of the board meeting will be limited to 30 minutes.
Speakers must be addressing topics the board has control over. Speakers are limited to three minutes each. If they’re representing a group of three or more people at the meeting, that time is increased to six minutes.
The policy also dictates that audience members can’t clap, cheer, boo or vocalize approval or disapproval for a speaker “unless a school board member or school official is presenting an award to a person or is describing an honor or award that a person received.”
“The emphasis on the public comment policy is we’re still staying at three minutes, but we’re capping it at 30 minutes. That was kind of the big change, along with some teeth of what prohibitive conduct is,” said Matzek.
