4 days ago
Under fire from state, Hillsborough's Ayres pledges to pull more books
Hillsborough County schools Superintendent Van Ayres pledged to remove more books from district shelves during a heated state Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, as board members suggested firing all county media specialists or exploring criminal charges as possible alternatives.
The meeting in Miami followed letters from Education Commissioner Manny Diaz and Attorney General James Uthmeier sharing concerns about the content of six books including 'pornographic materials' in school shelves. Ayres told the state board he would immediately order the removal of another 57 titles identified by the state as objectionable.
'I expect and hope that these books will be removed in the next two weeks,' board Chairperson Ben Gibson told Ayres. 'If they're not removed, then I'm going to ask the department and I'll ask the attorney general to use every tool within their disposal to make sure that pornographic materials are not in our schools.'
Ayres and the district's attorney, James Porter, said the district had already permanently removed the six books listed by Diaz and Uthmeier, and had pulled for review 600 additional books that had been challenged in any other Florida county.
That decision put Ayres at odds with members his of own school board, who said that while they supported the idea of removing inappropriate materials, they felt they should have been consulted. Board members also said his plan to offer a $1,500 stipend to eligible employees to help review books could cost the district more than the $345,000 he estimated.
The state board also did not appear to be satisfied with Ayres' move. They pressed for the immediate removal of a subset list of 57 titles they deemed patently pornographic, which includes 'All Boys Aren't Blue' by George Johnson and 'A Stolen Life: A Memoir' by Jaycee Lee Dugard.
'These are nasty, disgusting books that have no place in a school in Florida or even California,' board Vice Chairperson Richard Petty said. 'Please help me understand what your review process is. ... 'Process' sounds complicated. 'Process' sounds like it takes time. 'Process' sounds like there's some ambiguity to the outcome.'
Ayres said there is no process needed 'if the material is inappropriate for our students.'
In 2022, the state passed a law requiring trained media specialists to approve all materials in school libraries, and in 2023, they passed a law expanding the definition of unsuitable material. This year, a proposal to further define what is unsuitable failed to become law.
But at Wednesday's meeting, the state board questioned the existing processes in Hillsborough County.
Currently, if a parent has a concern with a book that a media specialist has allowed into a school's collections, they can raise it to a school-level committee. The committee would then read the book in its entirety and weigh the objectionable passages against the whole to determine if it should meet the criteria for selection, calling on outside professionals when necessary.
If a book is deemed inappropriate, it can either be referred to a different age level or removed from that school and elevated to be considered for district-wide removal. The district said more than 389,000 books out of more than 2 million had been removed as a result of these processes, but no concerns had previously come up about the specific titles the state identified.
Still, the board urged Ayres to go further.
'Have you considered firing all your media specialists and starting from scratch with women and men who can read?' board member Grazie Pozo Christie asked. 'These people that you trust to review these materials are abusing the children of your county. They're child abusers.'
The words they had allowed were 'too dirty and gross' for her to look at, she said.
Ayres said he did trust the media specialists and that 95 percent were certified.
Petty then asked Ayres to read out loud an excerpt from the memoir by Dugard, who was a kidnapping victim at age 11.
'I'm not going to — this material is not appropriate,' Ayres said. 'I'm not going to read that out loud, and that's why it was made unavailable for our students.'
'But you trust your media specialists, who obviously read this?' Petty followed. 'I think this is a moment where we need to see some courage from you to say this is inappropriate. I don't care what the rules say. I don't care what the current process is. This garbage should not be in schools in Hillsborough County schools, because it serves absolutely no educational purpose.'
Board member Daniel Foganholi said he believed accountability should fall on more than just Ayres.
'You have activist board members that put superintendents in a tough place, force them to do things, keep things in their libraries,' he said. 'What are we going to do to hold them accountable?'
Diaz pointed to the 'teeth in the law' and said the attorney general's office could explore repercussions for anyone who tries to prevent the removal of controversial books — including board members.
'I want to provide caution to those individuals that are either on a board and trying to put pressure on a superintendent, or those individuals that are directly placing these items in the library: they could face penalty under law and prosecution,' Diaz said.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
