Advocates promote student inclusion on Katy ISD book review committee

By George Slaughter, News Editor
Posted 9/1/22

As Katy school trustees consider how, or whether, to change district policy for reviewing and possibly removing books from school libraries, advocates are calling for including students on the review committee. They also are calling for keeping a book under challenge available to students during the review process.

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Advocates promote student inclusion on Katy ISD book review committee

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As Katy school trustees consider how, or whether, to change district policy for reviewing and possibly removing books from school libraries, advocates are calling for including students on the review committee. They also are calling for keeping a book under challenge available to students during the review process.

Jennifer Edozie, Henry Ebben and Logan McLean are seniors at Cinco Ranch High School. Anne Russey is a parent and counselor. They spoke in an interview Monday at the Cinco Ranch Public Library.

Presently, McLean said, the policy provides for including students on the review committee. But trustees are expected to review the policy at their Sept. 26 meeting amidst ongoing debate about books being pulled from school library shelves, and the policy guiding those actions. The policy is on the district website at katyisd.org/Page/4310. More information is at the abbreviated URL bit.ly/3AVzNvi.

McLean said trustees Rebecca Fox and Victor Perez have expressed opposition to the idea. Trustee Dawn Champagne also expressed opposition at the last trustees’ meeting.

Edozie said having students on the committee gives students the chance to ensure that student perspectives are being taken into account. She said she and others wanted to ensure that students selected for the committee are at least 18 years of age and have a mature perspective.

“To be fair, there are students and high schoolers who really don’t have that adult and mature perspective,” Edozie said. “So, at least trying to attain students who can give their point of view to these things and can offer their opinions would be fair. Also, there is just a generational gap which, to be fair, just adults and parents can’t fulfill and can’t really enter into the mind of young students, just like I can’t enter into the mind of a grown adult. So, if you’re going be making policies about the students themselves, at least they get the right to represent themselves through someone else being elected to represent them.”

Ebben said there are ways that district officials could find such students.

“They could ask for students to nominate someone to represent them,” Ebben said. “I think there are issues to that and I don’t think that’s the best idea, but I do think the idea of having the adults find someone that they feel is mature enough to make these decisions, that’s probably best.”

Russey said she has reviewed book review policies for other districts.

“Our district is unique in that we have not historically had secondary-level students serve on book review committees,” Russey said. “So, we don’t have to re-create the wheel. There are best practices already at comparable school districts throughout the state of Texas. As far as the logistics go, the librarians and the staff members involved are the most qualified to consult with peers, consult with TASB (Texas Association of School Boards), consult with whomever to help us get a process into place.”

The district keeps a list of books it has removed from shelves on its website, the URL for which is katyisd.org/Page/4311. Presently, district officials have deemed 10 books for removal, all due to “pervasive vulgarity.” The latest book to be pulled, in February, is A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah J. Maas.

Ebben said most of the books that have been pulled or challenged are about minorities or those who are LGBTQ.

“We read 1984 (by George Orwell) and there’s straight sex in that book, but they take out All Boys Aren’t Blue (by George M. Johnson) because it’s gay sex or gay influences in it,” Ebben said.

Russey said despite claims to the contrary, the books being challenged involve LBGTQ issues and people.

“They’re trying to pull the wool over all our eyes by just gaslighting that we didn’t all just watch them fight New Kid and Class Act a few months ago,” Russey said. “They came after those books because they had CRT (critical race theory), which I guess they think is vulgar in some way, too.”

Russey expressed concerns about the policy as now written, as parents outnumber educators and administrators.

“And as a parent, I think that’s a bad idea because I’m not as qualified as a librarian who has a master’s degree and studies book challenges and censorship extensively as part of their master’s degree,” Russey said. “I don’t want a bunch of these book burning, censoring parents making decisions for my kid, and that’s the way it feels like it’s being set up right now. I have concerns for our students who are so brave and willing to volunteer their time to do this. But I don’t want them to get run over by these parents.”

Ebben said it was important to know what books were challenged and why.

“Whenever people in power don’t want you to read something there’s a reason, and I think searching out those books when you know that they’re going to be taken away is really important,” Ebben said. “Because otherwise, you won’t have access to that later.”

Edozie agreed.

“I didn’t read all the books that were being taken off the shelves or were banned, necessarily, but I did digging and research into a good majority of them just to understand whether it was a thing of there’s something highly disturbing and crazy about these books, or whether it was something about them taking away our rights for reading this book for their own biased reasoning,” Edozie said.

Russey expressed a concern that trustees might want to countermand a review committee decision on a given book. She said if trustees chose to go that route, they would be undermining the committee they created.

Katy ISD, Katy Independent School District, books, censorship