ELIZABETH, Colo. — The Elizabeth School District (ESD) Board of Education voted Monday to take nearly two dozen books off its library shelves.
During a school board meeting on Monday, board members outlined 19 books that will be temporarily pulled from the district's shelves. Resources like Goodreads, Trigger Warning Database, Book Trigger Warnings, booklooks.org, and/or Junior Library Guild were used in the decision-making process, according to district documents.
Board members also unanimously adopted a checkout protocol for books that contain "sensitive topics." Under the protocol, parents can opt their children out of being able to check out books that have certain topics, including profanity/obscenity, racism/discrimination and religious viewpoints. Parents will also receive an email if their child does check out a book that's in the sensitive topic catalog.
The sensitive topic book catalog contains 138 books, including "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl," "To Kill A Mockingbird," and the Bible.
"I'll deal with the elephant in the room. This is not book banning," said board secretary Mary Powell during Monday's meeting. "They are not on our shelf because we do not feel they fulfill the educational protocols that we believe in for this district."
Several former educators spoke out against the board's decision.
"Books need to be a window to our world, and if close the blinds on those windows, kids are going to have no idea how our world is and how people are," said Kerry Jiblits, a retired ESD teacher.
"For a long time, outside politics wasn't a part of Elizabeth. We were almost in our own little island of doing what's best for kids. And the rest of the country and the state would be doing their politics, but we were just teaching... but the wall has cracked," said retired Elizabeth teacher Wayne Otte.
During Monday's meeting, the school board also voted to eliminate classroom libraries. However, that decision was put on hold Tuesday afternoon.
In a statement, the school district said board members "would like to get further feedback from staff as they work to merge their library protocol with student access to classroom materials."
Full statement:
"At last night’s Elizabeth School District board meeting, board members approved a measure that would direct that no classroom libraries of books are maintained within our schools. This is in conjunction with our library protocol and sensitive topic lists. The purpose of the measure is to relieve the burden of teachers and principals from having to determine what is appropriate for different family values. Under the measure, students are encouraged to keep a book either from the school library or from home in their desk to utilize when necessary. As of Tuesday evening, through individual conversations, the ESD board has directed the Superintendent to hold on that decision. Board members would like to get further feedback from staff as they work to merge their library protocol with student access to classroom materials. This is an opportunity for further dialogue from teachers as to the best practices of handling sensitive literature in classrooms."
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