No vote on removing books from schools as SC education board questions own rule
From left to right, state Board of Education Chair David O'Shields, attorney John Tyler, Chair-Elect Rita Allison, Joette Johnson and Joyce Crimminger hear a report during a meeting Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Amid state Board of Education members' misgivings about its own regulation banning 'sexual conduct' from K-12 public schools, the board held off on deciding Tuesday whether to remove 10 more books from school library shelves.
The state board unanimously approved the regulation last year, sending it to the state Legislature. Neither the House nor Senate took a vote on the regulation, which automatically went into effect last June through an apparent fluke that surprised even legislators.
Since the state board's first review in November, board members have agreed to remove 11 books from public school libraries and keep six others, one of which the board required parental permission to check out. Last month, a five-member committee unanimously recommended removing the 10 books up for consideration.
Books considered for removal Tuesday
'Collateral' by Ellen Hopkins
'Empire of Storms' by Sarah J. Maas
'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
'Hopeless' by Colleen Hoover
'Identical' by Ellen Hopkins
'Kingdom of Ash' by Sarah J. Maas
'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' by Malinda Lo
'Living Dead Girl' by Elizabeth Scott
'Lucky' by Alice Sebold
'Tricks' by Ellen Hopkins
Source: Instructional Materials Review Committee
But ahead of taking a vote Tuesday, board members began to question their own regulation, including whether they had applied it correctly in the past. Many of their questions echoed concerns opponents of the complaint have raised.
'I'm not sure if we're shooting at the right target, or if we're shooting whether our range finder is accurate,' said board member David O'Shields, superintendent of Laurens County School District 56.
The first seven books considered didn't come from a parent challenging a local district's ruling but by board members working with state Department of Education staff. Board members wanted to consider some widely questioned books to set a precedent for future rulings and hopefully clear up confusion, members said at the time.
Since then, most of the books removed from school libraries, including the 10 up for consideration Tuesday, came to the state board through challenges from one Beaufort County parent. The same parent brought 96 books to the Beaufort County Board of Education for review last year.
The local school board, which considered all the books before the statewide regulation went into effect, declined to remove any of the books from shelves. The same parent could feasibly ask the state board to consider every one of those books under the regulation, said board member Ken Richardson, former chairman of the Horry Georgetown Technical College board.
'When does this thing stop?' Richardson, who represents Horry and Georgetown counties, asked repeatedly.
10 more books recommended for removal in SC from K-12 libraries
'I think that's the question of the day,' replied board Chairwoman Rita Allison, a former longtime legislator from Spartanburg County.
Board members raised concerns over a single parent being able to bring dozens of requests to the state board, requiring schools across the state to remove them from library shelves, whether or not local community members share the concerns about the books. O'Shields, Allison and Richardson said they had yet to hear complaints about any of the books they had considered in the districts they represented.
'I do not like to come up here every single meeting and vote on books nobody in my area is even talking about,' Richardson said.
Five of the 10 books up for consideration Tuesday are in school libraries in Laurens County School District 56, where O'Shields in superintendent, he said.
Libraries bought those books with the hopes that they would encourage more students to read, while 'understanding that children don't come from a cookie cutter world,' O'Shields said. He questioned whether the board should be considering books as a whole, instead of based on excerpts containing sexual conduct.
In some cases, the sexual conduct that leads the board to remove books from shelves amounts to as little as a few pages in several-hundred-page novels, he said.
'Again, I am not in favor of it,' O'Shields said. 'I personally find those pages repugnant.'
But those books can still be important for some students, he said. O'Shields held up a small, yellow tome entitled 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask),' which he deemed his own 'puberty book' — the book to which he turned to learn about the changes happening in his adolescence.
'However, this was all I had. You know what I'm saying?' he continued.
For children who have experienced abuse or other struggles, reading stories similar to their own might be especially important, said Tony Vincent, a minister in Seneca. While he wouldn't be comfortable with his preteen daughters reading some of the books up for review, he also understood that every child is different, he said.
The books 'could possibly save lives and help young people understand themselves and their experiences,' said Vincent, who represents Anderson and Oconee counties.
SC teachers say new 'age-appropriate' rule is causing confusion. They're seeking clear guidance.
'Looking at these books outside of the arc of their full stories is a mistake, in my view,' Vincent said.
The board originally approved the regulation in order to protect children from nefarious people looking to introduce them to sexual ideas with the intention of abusing them, said Richard Harrington, who represents Florence and Marion counties. He acknowledged that he didn't know whether that was actually happening in South Carolina schools, but out of an abundance of caution, the board should continue to remove books that include sexual conduct, he said.
'It would be ill-advised to have these books remain when they could be used for that purpose,' Harrington said.
O'Shields and Vincent asked whether the board could consider a middle ground between removing the books from shelves entirely and allowing any student to access them. The board has already done something similar once, by requiring parental permission to check out 'Crank' by Ellen Hopkins.
'I'm asking for something so it's not, 'goodnight, sweet prince,' for these books,' O'Shields said.
The board voted to postpone a decision on the 10 books up for consideration Tuesday until members can get more clarification on the regulation in hopes of assuaging some of their concerns or determining whether the regulation needs any changes.
The next time the board could take a vote would be at its May 6 meeting.
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