In the Cameron high school library, the process and reason behind the sexually explicit books which have been added to the school libraries makes sense when you know the players behind the scenes. Or in this instance, it is the state library association known as MASL. It is the position of this organization that children should be permitted to read any content they want to read.
Listen to this interview with the President of the Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL) and then ask yourself, should an organization with these stated goals and opinions about parents be creating our guidelines on what content will be made available to children?
Recently a local Cameron resident, Mr Dan Landi, shared with me a book he found in the Cameron high school library. He found it with the school districts online book catalog through the school districts website. The book was the graphic novel version of Slaughterhouse Five. This was of particular interest because it contains pictures of people having sex, making it illegal for school to provide to children under Missouri statute 573.550. I confirmed the book showed as being in the online catalog through the resource Go Follett by selecting the state and appropriate school. I was able to find it in the CHS library catalog.
I found a website dedicated to the book fight in the Rockwood, MO, school district called Library Exposed. Searching their website I was able to see some of the images found in the book Slaughterhouse Five. I was able to determine why MO schools were pulling it. I will link directly to that page for the adults who want to be informed.
That got me curious, I wondered how many other books were in Cameron high school that had been pulled from Missouri schools for containing porn, as defined by Missouri statute 573.550. A quick internet search and I found an article from November of 2022 which said 300 books had been banned in Missouri because of the then newly implemented law. The article linked to a google document where there is a list of books and their authors which have been removed by various Missouri school district. A little copy and paste and I was able to see how many of those books still showed up in the Cameron high school library. To my dismay, I found 20 books in the Cameron high school library which appear other schools in Missouri determined were sexually explicit enough to remove . Twenty books which other Missouri school districts pulled from their shelves because they contained pictures which they were concerned would cause them to be in violation of Missouri law prohibiting schools from providing sexually explicit books to children.
In a previous blog entry, I discussed the graphic novel book Watchmen. I showed some of the content from that book, also found on the Library Exposed website. I include a video in that blog entry where I show the content and relevant statutes. You can find the blog post and video at Graphic novel Watchmen.
The image to the right is from a screen shot taken of the high school library catalog which shows Watchmen was in the library and was checked out to a Cameron high school student.
We obtained records from March 3, 2023 from the Cameron school district through Missouri Sunshine Law requests that show Robinson informed the board of education by email about a conversation he had with all the district librarians in August of 2022. He told the board “I sat down with all librarians in August and shared my thoughts on controversial books and shared that our day is coming, it’s only a matter of time.” That indicates he knew there were books that would concern parents and members of the community. Did they know about these books then? Why didn’t they take steps in August to avoid this issue? Has their day arrived? Hopefully it has and this means these books will finally be removed.
In April of 2023, Andi Lockridge, the attorney who sits on the Cameron board of education, asked the superintendent Matt Robinson during that months board of education meeting if any of those books, as defined by the statute she read aloud, were in the Cameron school district. He responded by shaking his head and said “no”. You can watch a recording of that board meeting that was live streamed on Citizen Observer Facebook page. The relevant portion begins around the 46 minute and 20 second mark.
Here is the current list of books which we found on the library catalog for the Cameron high school.
- Autopsies by Jeffrey Gary
- The Dark Knight series by Frank Miller
- Brazen:Rebel Ladies who rocked the world by Penelope Bagieu
- Grass by Gendry-Kim
- Himawari House by Harmony Becker
- How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown
- Salughterhouse Five graphic novel by Vonnegut
- Speak the graphic novel by Laurie Anderson
- Spinning by Tillie Walden
- The Best We Can Do by Thi Bui
- The Giver by Craig Russell
- The Sacrafice of Darkness by Roxane Gay
- Watchmen by Allen Moore
In response to parents and community members concerns about the sexually explicit adult content in books found inside the Cameron high school, the superintendent and board of education decided to send all the parents “book restriction forms”. Parents are responsible for completing the form with the book title and author of every book they do not want their children to read, and to submit it to the school librarian. The librarian will then insure that child does not check out any of those books. Sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, there is no good tool for parents to use to identify the books in the library that contain sexually explicit adult content, or any other number of concerning topics. It is the sole responsibility of the parents to know the content of more than 33,000 books in order to restrict their child from reading books each parent deems inappropriate.
At a board of education meeting in August, the board members discussed the book restriction form and suggested we use a catalog search by topic or subject to find books we don’t want our children to read. What they didn’t tell you, searching the catalog by topic or subject isn’t very effective. We use the book The Bluest Eye and the Cameron school districts online book catalog for the high school to make this point.
If you are not familiar with the content of the book The Bluest Eye, you read the concerning content on Book Looks or hear a reading of some of its passages on our Facebook page. The book tells of the molestation of a 12 year old girl from the perspective of the man who is assaulting her. It is dark, and difficult to read. With that information, we will show the subjects listed in the catalog for this book in the video below. You will see why what the district is proposing, that parents are responsible for finding the content they added to our libraries, isn’t a viable option.
There just aren’t any good tools for parents to identify the concerning books. The school district knows this, but they want to say they’ve done something. They have, they’ve passed their responsibility for these books to the parents.
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.
Recently a new rule went into effect in MO, Library Certification Requirement for the Protection of Minors, that was designed to help protect children from sexually explicit, obscene and age inappropriate content while empowering parents. No surprise, the Cameron school district is in direct defiance and non-compliance with this new rule. Libraries which do not comply with these rules will be ineligible to receive state funding earmarked for the purchase of books. Rules for thee, but not for me. Why wouldn’t the school district want to comply with a requirement designed to help protect minors?
There are six requirements outlined in this rule that libraries must follow in order to receive funding from the state. Those rules are :
- Libraries must create and publish a written policy describing how they consider age appropriateness when selecting materials. – No such policy exists at the Cameron school district. This is one of the many complaints of the citizens concerned about the books in our school district.
- Libraries are banned from buying materials that are “obscene,” “pornographic for minors” or “child pornography” as defined by Missouri law.
- Libraries must create and publish a policy letting parents and guardians determine what materials their child(ren) can access. Library workers are banned from giving material to children that hasn’t been approved by parents. – No such policy exists in the Cameron school district. They do offer a “restriction form” but that does not comply with this requirement. It is going to require a GOOD policy for the district to be able to comply with this one.
- No “age-inappropriate” materials will be displayed in areas of libraries primarily used for children or teens. – Under the new rule, parents have the right to challenge such displays. This is good for parents AND students. See item 6.
- Events held in the libraries must designate which age groups the events are deemed appropriate to allow parents to decide if they will allow their child(ren) to participate.
- Libraries will adopt a written policy letting parents challenge whether materials, events or displays are “age-appropriate.” Results of challenges must be published on a library’s website. – This item is big. I will write about it below.
Just last week at a special board of education meeting the board voted unanimously to rescind policy KLB-AP1. That policy partially complied with item 6. But our board of education felt it was prudent and necessary to rescind the policy which allowed parents to challenge individual books if we had any concerns about the contents.
Now the district tells us if we have concerns about a book we need to address those concerns through policy BDDH-1. You will have to request to be added to the agenda to address the board of education and ask them to consider instructing the district to review the book which concerns you. Mind you, they are under no obligation to do so. It is entirely at their discretion.
The stated goal of this library certification requirement is to protect children. Why would the district and board of education vote to rescind policy KLB-AP1 which gave parents and tax payers a process to challenge books, to try and protect our children?Why is our superintendent not complying with this new rule? Is he not aware, or is this a deliberate act?
To the parents and tax payers in the Cameron community, its time to take a stand. I encourage you to contact every member of the board of education and ask them why they choose to move away from the requirements that were put in place to help protect our children. Demand answers. And let us know how the respond.
https://www.cameron.k12.mo.us/page/board-members
Does the Cameron board of education truly respect your uninhibited freedom of speech? Or do some of them believe there are limits? Should a public body, or specifically members of that body, be calling for their constituents to curb their freedom of speech because the topics turn our stomachs?
We get freedom even in these topics that sometimes turn our stomachs.
Pam Ice, board president of Cameron school district, at 29 August 2023 board meeting
Below is a video clip taken from the special meeting of the board of education on the evening of August 29, 2023. In the meeting Pam spoke after Ann and Jackie, but I include her part in this clip first. Freedom is scary. But Pam is right, it is what our nation was founded upon.
Several grievances have been filed with the district alleging 1st and 14th amendment violations relating to freedom of speech issues. Perhaps there is true merit to those allegations and they should be taken seriously.
The Cameron area has received some outside attention on the issue relating to sexually explicit books in our public school libraries. Ryan Foley, a reporter with the Christian post, published his article titled “Missouri parents say school district ‘stonewalled’ them about ‘naughty books’ in school libraries.”
You can read the story on the Christian Post website.
At the recent board of education there was some discussion by the board on Social Emotional Learning (SEL)and how wonderful it is for the kids. If all I knew about SEL is what the board told us I would be onboard for it too. But I’ve seen the stories that are being told across our nation about the darker side of SEL.
I am going to share one story that was sent to me today by a concerned parent. This story takes place in CA, the birthplace of SEL. You know the old saying, as goes California so goes the nation. This story takes place in California and it is common there for SEL to tell youth that sex is normal and healthy. Some even encourage children to do it. Social Emotional Learning is used by sexual predators through emotional manipulations to sexualize children. The link to the Daily Wire story is below.
A leading “social emotional learning” program that contracts with schools and holds intimate talks with children is led by an astrology-peddling mystic who pushed girls as young as 12 to have sex and appears to have failed to report child abuse and at least one case of rape, according to an investigation by The Daily Wire.
DailyWire.com – https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-emotional-learning-guru-may-have-concealed-sex-abuse-while-pushing-young-teens-to-enjoy-sex
Social Emotional Learning is being taught in the Cameron school district. Parents should learn more about SEL and make appointments with the district to see the curriculum. It can be used by bad actors to sexualize our kids. But it can be used for other bad purposes too. Do a search for “dangers of social emotional learning” and prepare to be frustrated. Social Emotional Learning is like Critical Race Theory on steroids.