What does the Date column represent?
Books listed with a 9/2000 date were found on an "approved list," provided by the Blue Valley School district. These books were "approved" by the district as of 9/2000 because documentation existed to address 2 of the 14 selection criteria steps as outlined by Blue Valley selection of learning resources policy 4600. (Unfortunately, no documentation exists to address 12 of the 14 selection criteria -- criteria that identify important issues such as age appropriateness. This means that the "approved" status of these books is not credible because the bulk of the selection policy was ignored.) Unfortunately, this has led to the current situation in which some of the books on the "approved" list are books that contain the most profane or sexually stimulating content.
Books listed with a 6/2004 date were reapproved by the district in June of 2004. Rationales for each of these books should be available in your high school libraries. Note, however, that none of the documentation for the 9/2000 nor the 6/2004 approvals includes any discussion of what constitutes age-appropriate material for minors. In other words, the heart of the matter -- the influence of vulgar, profane, and sexually-stimulating literature on the mental and physical health of a minor child -- continues to be ignored by Blue Valley educators selecting these novels even though their own internal selection policy has always stated otherwise.
If a book doesn't have a 6/2004 district approval date, the teacher does not have approval to assign the novel as required reading in a classroom.
What does a question mark (?) or link in the Date column represent?
The question mark (?) indicates that a book has been used in a class, but was never approved by the district for this purpose. In other words, for many of the books that your child is being asked to read, the Blue Valley internal selection policy 4600 that supposedly governs the selection of learning resources for the school system, policy 4600 was completely bypassed. Links are provided to some of the unapproved books to prove that students are still required to read books that have not gone through the internal Blue Valley book selection policy.
Of primary concern...
...is the fact that there is NO CURRENT documentation to show that the "age appropriate" criteria of Blue Valley's internal policy 4600, which states that books shall be selected according to the "Appropriateness of the resource for the age, emotional development, ability level, learning style, and social development of the students," has been considered for any of these books.
Rather, it appears as if the age of the children being asked to read these books has been intentionally ignored because profane, sexually-stimulating, and other vulgar material is consistently being assigned to students who are minors--ages 14 to 18 as required reading. Please ask that our school system follow their own internal selection policies. Please ask the school system to document why their required reading book selections are healthy and appropriate literature for the age of the children being required to read these titles.