This should be the wackiest and craziest story you read this month, but since we are in Florida, it has practically gone unnoticed. The long and short of it is one parent complained about a book their kid didn't have to read, and a district spent tens of thousands of dollars and dozens, maybe hundreds of hours over it.
Steven Walker education reporter for the Herald Tribune covered a recent Sarasota Public Schools school board meeting which was all about one book, Stamped, Racism Antiracism and You.
At the meeting, a parent of a middle school student and one parent of one middle school student protested the book, and she was given ten minutes to defend her position. TEN MINUTES!!!!
She rambled on about critical race ideology and marxism in her ten-minute-long word salad. It was about 8 minutes and thirty seconds longer than she needed. The board declined to ask her any questions.
A district employee spoke next and said the parent could have requested their child not check the book out, and they would have complied, and that friends should have been the end of the story.
All over the state, books are being taken off shelves because a handful or maybe one parent doesn't like the book because they are bigots, homophobes and rascists for whatever reason. These ignorant and mean few are deciding for every family what their kids can and cannot read. Why can't we send home a form that says, my child can't check out any book without my permission, or one that says, I trust my child's teacher to look out for them because they are ^%#$ing professionals and they can check out whatever they want? The first letter might get 2 percent returned. The second is somewhere in the high nineties.
It gets worse. The employee then said it took three weeks to review the book because of schedules, and the district spent 5,000 dollars in legal fees to make sure everything was done right. All of that, including this meeting, was because one parent complained about one book their kid did not have to read.
I said in the title tens of thousands and dozens of hours, because staff couldn't do their real jobs must have spent that by now on this monumental fool's errand and again all for one book, complained about by one parent that their one child did not have to read. Oh, and the book had gone problem free since 2019.
This is the chaos that DeSantis has created.
After that, public comment started, and it was overwhelmingly for leaving the book in the library because unless you are a member of Moms for Liberty or a republican politician, you understand that is where books belong, even if you don't like it, and even if it may make little Johnny, who does not have to read it if he does not want to uncomfortable, belongs.
To read Steven's Twitter thread, which is amazing, click the link:
https://twitter.com/swalker_7/status/1622996777241640960
Here is some more from WUSF public media
The Sarasota County school board voted unanimously Tuesday to keep a book in middle school libraries that had been challenged by one parent for teaching critical race theory.
However, by a 3-to-2 vote, the board will require parental permission for middle schoolers to check out "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You".
The book, written by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, was challenged in May 2021 by the mother of a Venice Middle School student.
Her complaint alleged that the book taught that all white people are inherently racist, and that allowing it in schools was akin to allowing books that support Nazi ideology.
A review committee comprised of media specialists, school principals, teachers and parents ruled in November that the book doesn't violate Florida laws.
I don't think for a second all white people are inherently racist, but I can think of at least one.
Welcome to DeSantis's Floridumb
brought to you by "small government conservatives"
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