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.
On February 6, the Cameron, MO high school shared out a post on it’s Facebook Page highlighting a “book tasting” event held by ELA teacher Jennifer Reents-Dickkut for her sophomore level Language Arts class. One local parent noticed that among the images posted by the Cameron school district were 3 titles that had been restricted by the school superintendent, Matt Robinson. These books were restricted because of the adult content they contained and were not to be given to under age children without express permission from a parent through a form provided by the district.
Here is the original post on the Cameron R-1 High Schools Facebook page. Three different “restricted” titles are visible in the included photos for this post
In a strange turn of events, we received an email that was forwarded by a parent who had a child in that class. That parents child was given the restricted book The Hate U Give without the parents consent. This parent emailed Mrs Dickkut to ask why their child was given a restricted book without consent. The following screenshot was taken from the bizarre response which seems to suggest that superintendent Robinson’s restriction on books is only for reading, viewing them is acceptable. See the blue highlighted portion in the image below.
“There is a policy to read books with permission, but nothing on the form about viewing them. ” – Jennifer Reents-Dickkut
Yes, Mrs Dickkut appears to defend her actions by suggesting that school restrictions that prohibit her from providing restricted books to children without parental written approval doesn’t apply to just “viewing”.
Considering the 2 year long fight in Cameron over all of these explicit books with adult content, it doesn’t seem reasonable that this was a mistake or a misunderstanding of policy. Dickkut was at the same board meetings as me when the superintendent and board discussed these restricted books and how they were to be handled. It was very clear. Restricted books were to be segregated in a library closet and not to be given to students under the age of 18 without first getting parental approval on a book restriction form. There was ZERO discussion about any differences between reading and viewing.
In a story we shared yesterday, you can see Mrs. Dickkut admitted to this parent that she told the students in advance that there were restricted books being used in the book tasting. This struck me as odd, because we were told by the Cameron school district and our board of education that access to restricted books would be controlled and only students with parental consent would be provided a restricted book. This appears to be a deliberate act by an activist teacher to disobey her administrators and board of education.
Recently the Clinton County leader, based out of rural Plattsburg, MO, published a story on its Facebook page about the Cameron High Schools social media post about CHS teacher Jennifer Reents-Dickkut’s Language Arts 2 classes. The Sophomore level classes visited the CHS library and took part in a “book tasting.” According to Reents-Dickkut, 9 different books were “tasted”. We have that list of books and would like to share it.
While viewing the schools social media post about the “book tasting”, a concerned member of the public identified 3 three books shown in those pictures that had been restricted by school superintendent Matt Robinson. According to Robinson and the 7 member school board, restricted books were not to be given to minors without express parental consent.
We have obtained an email record from Mrs. Reents-Dickkut about the books that was sent to a concerned parent. Dickkut appears to provide a list of the books used in her book tasting event. Dickkut denies that the book Me Earl and the Dying Girl shown in the pictures for the event was used in the class. Apparently another district employee was making that restricted material available to the students.
Here is the list of book titles sent to the concerned parent. Some of the books listed here are rated by Book Looks, we will provide a link to those books after the book titles. Those links will open a PDF which will give you an overview of the book, a summary of the concerns with that book and the page numbers with the text of the concerning passages. Books with excessive vulgar language will also include word counts on that PDF. The books Speak and Hate U Give are the two books that have been restricted by the school district. There are links provided for both of those books.
1-The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon, –
2 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, – Link to Book Looks
3-All American Boys by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds – Link to Book Looks
4-The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas – Link to Book Looks
5-Dear Martin by Nic Stone – Link to Book Looks
6-The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie – Link to Book Looks
7- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds – Link to Book Looks
8-Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
9-A very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi etc.
This screen shot was taken from the email that Mrs. Dickkut sent to the concerned parent. The admissions from Dickkut in this letter are concerning and will be featured in its own topic soon. In this screen shot made from that email, you can see students were told in advance that restricted books were on the tables. The school board assured the community the restricted books wouldn’t be given to students without parental consent. Clearly that directive wasn’t followed.
What is the curriculum objective for these 9 books that Mrs. Dickkut selected for that class? What is the literary value of those books? We have asked those very questions dozens of times about the books we find and challenge within the Cameron, Missouri, school district. In 2 years, neither the district nor any member of the board of education will so much as acknowledge they have received our questions. So without any answers, we have been left to trying to draw our own conclusions.
Because the Cameron school district refuses to allow parents or members of the public to inspect these books, we have to resort to using the only available resource they provide us, Destiny Discover. Jumping into Destiny I found a reoccurring theme to these books selected for this class. Racism and oppressed minority groups. Is this DEI in our classrooms?
In the following video, you will see and hear Mrs. Dickkut addressing the school board about the restriction of books in the Cameron school district. She strongly supports children reading these books with adult sexually explicit content. In this video, Dickkut mentions diversity 5 times along with references to race, minority groups, LGBTQ issues and a few other topics addressed in DEI. Is this a radical teacher pushing DEI on our kids? You tell me.