Cameron R-1 school district knew about and ignored sexually explicit books

In a recent post on Facebook by Cameron R-1 School board candidate Michael Barlow responds to questions asked by the local Cameron Newspapers.  One of the questions asked of all the school board candidates relates to the 2 year battle over sexually explicit books in the Cameron R-1 public school libraries.

The response from Mr. Barlow highlights one of the issues we have been vocal about over the past 2 years.  I have no doubt Mr Barlow believes those things, but his belief is based on a lack of information from the Cameron R-1 schools.  There is a serious lack of transparency in the school district and the community simply doesn’t know the reality of our book fight with the school.

In his statement, which you can read in its entirety HERE, Michael said the following about how he believes the book issue will be handled moving forward.

“A legitimate concern has been brought forward about content in books. My belief is this will continue to be identified, addressed, and corrected by the school district.” – Michael Barlow for Cameron School Board

What the Cameron community doesn’t know, the school superintendent knew 6 months before we found and went public with the first book challenges these books were there. The district knew, had the opportunity to quietly remove them, and did nothing. Matt Robinson, school superintendent, ignored the issue and waited for parents or the community to figure it out. How do we know this? Public records obtained through a Missouri Sunshine Law request.

The following image was obtained through a public records request.  This email was sent by Matt Robinson to the entire boards of education.  Go to the last paragraph and read the last two sentences.  Matt Robinson told the board of education “I sat down with all librarians in August and shared by thoughts on controversial books and shared our day is coming, it’s only a matter of time.  Well, our day arrived last Thursday.” – Cameron R-1 school superintendent

The Cameron R-1 School district knew we had abhorrent and deviant sexually explicit books in our school libraries. They also knew they had books with content that was of concern and would likely be challenged. Children were checking out and reading these books while the problem was ignored. Instead of being proactive and getting ahead of the issue, they did nothing and waited for these sexually explicit books to be discovered by someone else. They knew these books were in our libraries and chose to do NOTHING.

The Cameron community largely believes the school district is addressing the book issue. Because of a lack of transparency by the school district and the board of education the community doesn’t know the truth of the matter. Every step taken by the Cameron school district relating to the sexually explicit and other adult content in these books has been reactive.

The following is a bulleted list of things I do not believe the community knows about the book issue, the Cameron R-1 school district and the board of education.

• The school district has no plan for the district to identify any other remaining books with adult content.  They are relying on parents and the community to find them.
• Despite relying on the community to identify books with adult content, the district and board refuse to allow the community access to the libraries to inspect books.  Parents are not allowed to see the books being provided to their children.
• The Cameron school district and board of education have ignored every one of our questions about the educational value or curriculum objective of these books.
• The school and board president have ignored every request for a community engagement meeting to talk about the book issue.  They do NOT want to be on the record talking about this.
• The “book review committee” meets in secret and keeps no records of any kind.
• The procedure used by the book review committee to determine if a book needs to be restricted is also secret.  They refuse to provide any documents.
• The reason a book has been restricted by the book review committee is also a secret.  The school will not tell the community what content is on those restricted books.
• Once a book has been restricted, the school doesn’t share any information with parents that would empower us to determine if we want our children to read these books.  They have used tax payer resources to pay employees to review these books.  Why not document the process and inform the public?
• there is no policy that allows a parent or tax payer to challenge a book.  Most every other Missouri school has that policy.
• unlike every other school in our area, Cameron has no policy that would allow a member of the community to challenge a decision by the book review committee and ask the school board to take a vote and make the final decision.
• Cameron did have both of those policies in place but rescinded them both when I challenged the decisions of the first book review committees.
• Cameron does not have a policy that covers the selection of library books.  It is entirely at the discretion of the librarian.  This is likely why we have so many inappropriate books in Cameron.
• In two years, the Cameron school district and board of education have NEVER addressed the community or publicly talked about what kind of books are appropriate for our district.
• The only public responses by the board of education is to cite “diversity”.  Do they truly believe that “diversity” requires we provide abhorrent content to children?
• The Cameron school board doesn’t like the book issue, so they changed policy and limit us to discussing books once every 3 months.  Even with new information relevant to the book topic, the board refuses.