Do you know what your children were assigned to read last summer?

Blue Valley continues to ignore its own policy for proper selection of assigned novels. Many of the summer reading assignments contain perverted sex scenes such as incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and necrophilia as well as graphic obscenity/profanity including the f-word even though Blue Valley policies state that textbooks "shall be age appropriate" and "absent of sex, violence, and profanity that is gratuitously employed." Seven of the sex-filled books on the www.classkc.org petition have been assigned as required summer reading even though the Blue Valley CA teachers have a list of 90-some approved novels to choose from.

To date, the district has NOT explained how these summer assignments have been determined to be either "age appropriate" nor "absent of sex, violence, or profanity that is gratuitously employed" even though their own policies promise otherwise. Indeed, 12 of these novels are completely new titles for which there is no public documentation to show how the school has met the promises of the Board of Education's textbook selection policy 4600.

For example, sophomores at North and Northwest have been assigned The Secret Life of Bees, a book written at 5.7 grade reading level (yes, that's less than 6th grade!) for compulsory summer reading.

Wouldn't it make sense for the Blue Valley school district to teach a standard Communication Arts curriculum across all four high schools as it does for every other subject (math, science, foreign language, etc.)?

And wouldn't you think that every high school senior graduating from the district would have been taught the same material? Why do our English teachers persist in assigning their own "'pet" novels, some of which have never been filtered through BOE textbook selection policy #4600?

How long will Blue Valley parents and patrons let this continue? Please join 700 other patrons and parents who have petitioned the district to replace 14 sex- and profanity-filled textbooks with higher quality literature by adding your name to the petition.

Below is a comparison of the summer reading assignments between the various Blue Valley high schools. The most important question is this: Why does Blue Valley insist on teaching with so much perverted sex and profanity?

Blue Valley High BV North BV Northwest BV West
CA 1 Honors/9th A Separate Peace,
To Kill a Mockingbird		 The Chosen Non-honors: Stotan**
Honors: The Chosen,
A Separate Peace		 Anthem
Of Mice and Men,
Lord of the Flies
CA 2 Honors/10th The Once & Future King The Once & Future King Non-honors: The Secret Life of Bees*
Honors: Peace Like a River*,
The Secret Life of Bees*		 The Secret Life of Bees*,
The Once & Future King
CA 3 AP Ella Minnow Pea*
+ choose 1:
An American Childhood*,
Woman Warrior*,
Hunger of Memory*,
or Black Boy**		 Choose nonfiction:
Reading Lolita in Tehran*,
Souls of Black Folk*
or own choice		 Non-AP: Black Boy**
AP: Black Boy**
and The Red Badge of Courage		 The Grapes of Wrath
and Ella Minnow Pea*
CA 4 AP Brave New World
+ choose 1:
Crime and Punishment,
Tess of the D'Urbervilles*
or Catch-22		 Choose 2:
Cry the Beloved Country,
Jane Eyre,
Native Son*,
Pride and Prejudice,
Catch-22,
Sister Carrie*		 Non-AP: Slaughterhouse-5
Hot Zone**

AP: Catch-22,
Jane Eyre,
Crime & Punishment,
plus
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
(a particularly filthy book, NOT approved by the district, assigned for extra credit)		 READ 3.
Choose 1:
Beloved**,
Song of Solomon**,
Cry the Beloved Country,
Their Eyes Were Watching God
or To Kill a Mockingbird AND

Choose 1:
Frankenstein,
Wuthering Heights,
Jane Eyre,
Brave New World,
David Copperfield,
Madam Bovary

AND Choose 1:
Lords of Discipline**,
Catch-22,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest**,
In Cold Blood,
To Kill a Mockingbird
or Slaughterhouse-5

* Red means that teachers have NOT provided rationales for these books as promised by the Board of Education's textbook selection policy 4600.

** Two asterisks mean that 700 patrons and counting have signed a petition asking for replacement of these books with higher quality, non-sexualized literature.

Note regarding Black Boy: This book was taught in Spring 2005 at BV West to second-semester juniors. Because of the controversial content, West required the book to be read with an "adult reader" (age 25 or older). At BV Northwest, Black Boy is assigned to incoming juniors to read on their own in the summer with no assignment of an "adult reader."