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.