What's good for the kids is NOT what's good for the Board of Education
April 2005
Rather than welcoming patron concerns and several workable solutions regarding the current book controversy, the Blue Valley Board of Education and administration have spent the entire school year telling concerned taxpayers to “let the system work.” How long would it really take to review the 14 vulgar books on the www.classkc.org
petition? Interestingly, while the board has not found time to implement policy 4600 for the selection of learning resources, or to even review the
14 books on the petition, they have made time to revise two policies to
limit the ability of citizens to...
1) publicly address the board during Open Forum
2) ask that a vulgar book be reconsidered (known as the challenge process).
Evidently, patrons reading from the sex- and profanity-filled high school textbooks during Open Forum has just been a bit too distasteful for the board, even though they obviously want our children to read, study, and discuss the same thing.
Board president John Fuller stated, “Sadly, I've gotten more e-mails and phone calls over this book issue than I did during the $10 million in budget cuts we've undertaken in the last three years combined.” Could it be, Mr. Fuller, that the taxpayers feel very strongly about this issue, perhaps more so than any other issue in Blue Valley history?
For an entire school year, we have unsuccessfully asked the board to
1) enforce its existing textbook selection policy 4600 in the first place
2) inform parents of specific adult content ahead of time and require them to opt in their child.
On May 9, 2005, the BOE approved policies limiting what types of learning resources can be challenged, by whom, and when. They also voted to limit what can be said at public forum. We wonder if these policies will also take more than an entire school year to be enforced? Sadly, no they won't -- policies that protect or help the BOE itself are enforced immediately. Policies that have to do with the kids are just for show.
