CONFIRMED – Cameron school district ineligible for state funds to purchase library books

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.