Another Batch of Explicit Books in Elmbrook Libraries Revealed
Discovery of explicit titles continues, but the community faces headwinds with recently elected board members who "trust our experts" and believe "policies are working."
The Elmbrook community continues to find explicit books in the collection of 215,000+ titles that has been “curated” by the district.
“A Court of Silver Flames” | “Forever” | “And They Lived” | “Court of Wings and Ruin” | “I’ll Give You the Sun”
While some community members may think book objections are bigoted, the page shown below is from “A Court of Silver Flames” and is exemplar of some of the highly-explicit text.
Elmbrook’s Director of Library Services, Kay Benning, has previously spoken about the “restrictive” library policy and signed nomination papers for two of this year’s candidates, Mary Wacker and Jean Lambert.
Another senior leader was critical of library policy changes. In October 2022, Chris Thompson, Elmbrook’s Chief Strategy Officer, said that, “It is important to recognize the added scrutiny this process brings to [the librarian staff’s] daily work.”
What’s Next?
Recent statements by Board Members Mary Wacker & Jean Lambert
All Elmbrook candidates were asked in this year’s Board Candidate Forum on educational materials, including library books and resources in curriculum, and if policies are working in these areas.
Newly elected Mary Wacker said, “Are district policies working? Yes. Yes they are. The job of the school board is to hire the best, rely on their expertise to do their jobs […] as a board member, I intend to trust our experts to use their professional knowledge and good judgement wisely […]”
The Challenge Process
Currently, it appears that a minority of Elmbrook board members would support a comprehensive library and curriculum resource review. To challenge individual books, Policy 6144 is in place, which states that “a faculty member, parent/guardian, student or resident may question the appropriateness of instructional or library materials through a process outlined in Practice Statement 6144.”
This process does not appear to give equal weight to both viewpoints and includes questions such as:
Are you aware of the judgement of this material by literary critics?
Would you like the teacher or librarian to give you a written summary of what book reviews and other students of literature have written about the material?
Other questions seem to shift away from adults evaluating a book based on its content. Some of these questions include:
What do you feel might be the result of reading/using this material?
Have you been able to learn the student’s response to this work? What response did the student make?
Parental Notifications and Opt-Out Capability
Explicit books have been an ongoing discussion since 2021, and one positive change the district implemented was a weekly email to parents with a summary of books checked out by their students.
This additional transparency is helpful for some parents, although since the email is not instantaneous, one vulnerability that remains is that students may already have been exposed to adult level explicit content prior to parental notification.
Additionally, some parents have chosen to opt-out of the online library resource, Sora. More information on Sora and how to opt-out is covered here.
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