One of our constant concerns about the Cameron school district and the board of education is that we do not feel they are listening to us. We have been saying consistently for some time that they are ignoring us. On Tuesday night two of the board members, Pam and Staci, proved it.
In this video clip you will hear a portion of the address that Paula Allen made to the board. She referred to the April board meeting when a student told the board about sexual comments being made by teachers. Pam and Staci both asked about this teacher and when he left the school district. Had the looked into the complaint of sexual harassment of students by teachers back in April, wouldn’t the know the answer to this question? Shouldn’t they know?
This clearly indicates to me this board of education does not take our concerns seriously. It appears they dismissed Kassidy Wilcox entirely. This is why parents and students say that when they come to the district with concerns and problems that we feel ignored and dismissed. Because they are ignoring and dismissing us.
We often times hear from folks that we are exaggerating about the book issue at the Cameron school district, that the books are not as bad as we imply. We also have people shocked and appalled when they hear one of us read from one of these books. We are going to provide a list of those books which you’re able to view online through the Book Looks website below. You can check our work and confirm they’re in the library with another website, Go Follett. Just select your state, your district and the school.
The following list is from the Cameron high school. These books contain adult sexually explicit content.
- All Boys Aren’t Blue by Johnson – LINK
- The Bluest Eye by Morrison – LINK
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Maas – LINK
- Crank by Hopkins – LINK
- Eleanor and Park by Rowell – LINK
- Fade by McMann – LINK
- The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers Erin Gruwell – LINK
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood – LINK
- The You I’ve Never Known by Hopkins – LINK
- YOLO by Myracle – LINK
- Juliet Takes a Breath by Rivera – LINK
- The Kite Runner by Hosseini – LINK
- Like a Love Story by Nazemian- LINK
- Looking for Alaska: a Novel by Green – LINK
- Lucky by Sebold – LINK
- The Lovely Bones by Sebold – LINK
- Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Andrews – LINK
- Nineteen Minutes by Picoult – LINK
- Out of Darkness by Perez – LINK
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Chbosky – LINK
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut – LINK
- Sold by McCormick – LINK
- Speak by Anderson – LINK
- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Maguire – LINK
- The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Foley – LINK
- A Child Called IT by David Pelzer – LINK
- How beautiful the ordinary by Michael Cart – LINK
- Ask the Passengers by A.S. King – LINK
- All the Things We Do In the Dark by Saundra Mitchell – LINK
- Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott – LINK
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer – LINK
- The DUFF by Kody Keplinger – LINK
- Crown of Midnight: A throne of glass by Maas – LINK
- Throne of Glass by Maas – LINK
- Smoke by Hopkins – LINK
- Burned by Hopkins – LINK
- Crank by Hopkins – LINK
- Fallout by Hopkins – LINK
- Glass by Hopkins – LINK
- Identical by Hopkins – LINK
- Impulse by Hopkins – LINK
- Rumble by Hopkins – LINK
- Tilt by Hopkins – LINK
- Traffick by Hopkins – LINK
- Ttfn by Myracle – LINK
- L8r, G8r by Myracle –LINK
- Shine by Myracle – LINK
- TTYL by Myracle- LINK
- The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis – LINK
- Heroine Mindy McGinnis – LINK
- Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher – LINK
- Beloved by Toni Morrison – LINK
- The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas – LINK
- Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender – LINK
- Friday by Robert Heinlein – LINK
- Go Ask Alice by Anonymous – LINK
- Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson – LINK
- How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi – LINK
- I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson – LINK
- A Stolen Life by Dugard – LINK
- The Glass Castle by Walls –
- The Poet X by Acevedo – LINK
At the conclusion of the September 19, 2023 board of education meeting, Pam Ice, president of the board of education in Cameron, Missouri, read a prepared statement to the public who were in attendance. I believe some of the information she provided is inaccurate. I have inserted my response into that original video. That compilation is shared in the video below.
I believe this is yet another calculated delay tactic by the Cameron school district to try and buy time. This policy, like the last one they used to review the sexually explicit books, does not include a solution to the problem. This policy does not give the district the ability to restrict content that is vulgar or sexually explicit.
The district has no policy in place that will prevent additional sexually explicit, vulgar and inappropriate content from being added to our libraries. They do not have any plan, or apparent desire, to start a process of finding additional concerning content that hasn’t yet been identified. Why are the members of the public responsible for finding the inappropriate content the school added?
This shouldn’t be so difficult.
In a previous blog entry titled Cameron school district likely ineligible for state funds to purchase books under new rule to protect children, we speculated the Cameron school district wasn’t complying with this new rule. In the interest of getting the truth of the matter, we submitted a sunshine law request seeking the records that would show the truth. We were right. The Cameron R-1 school district is not in compliance.
You can see the sunshine law request above that was made to request records that would have shown the Cameron school district attempting to comply with this new rule to qualify for state funds designated specifically to purchase library books.
In this next image you can see the response from the Cameron school district to that records request. When Ms Walker says “The district does not have any records responsive to this request.” that is our indication that they didn’t submit that paperwork by the deadline date. Had they submitted the paperwork there would be a record.
Does that mean the school district won’t add more books to the library?
The Cameron school district will still add lots of books to the Cameron school libraries, they will just use funds other than those provided by the secretary of state to pay for them. By using funds the school already has they can avoid those pesky restrictions on providing vulgar and sexually explicit books to our children.
This is unfortunate for two reasons. The most obvious is that in order to qualify for those state funds that can only be used to buy books, the Cameron school district would have to take steps to protect our children from vulgar and sexually explicit content. That would be the win that we are seeking.
The second reason, if those book purchases are bought with funds that the school already has it prevents those book purchase funds from being used for other necessities within the district. If we can obtain funds from the state specifically to buy books we could stretch the budget further to see to more needs of our students.
Can anything be done since they aren’t complying?
I had the same question, and I have to admit I may be wrong here. But my understanding is this isn’t a law, so there is no way to force compliance. If the Cameron school district doesn’t wish to comply with the requirements to receive those funds they are ineligible to receive them. They are not required to received those funds.
Our fight will continue
This new rule would have been an easy solution for the Cameron school district and board of education to protect our children from inappropriate content. It is more than a little disappointing they elected to ignore it and not comply.
Our fight to remove the adult content from the school district is far from over. We are committed to bringing change and protecting our children. If you are willing to help, either in the eye of the public or from the shadows, please let us know.