Last week, Fairfax County schools were caught with explicit pedo-pornography in the school's library. This was allowed to be distributed to high schoolers, who are underage.
Being a concerned parent, I went ahead and emailed a school board representative the following:
I read through your newsletter and I appreciate all the good work you trying to do.
However, you completely left out the issue of gay pornography being found in school libraries within Fairfax County schools.
Given that students under the age of 18 cannot legally consent, this basically criminal behavior and needs to be addressed immediately.
I received the following response:
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter—and I am even more grateful you took the time to write. I received your correspondence regarding two books mentioned during public testimony at the Fairfax County School Board meeting on September 23. I wanted you to understand the action and next steps being taken to address the concerns brought to the School Board’s attention.
While we appreciate every opportunity to hear directly from constituents, the School Board does not make decisions regarding titles made available in our school libraries. FCPS does, however, have a process to review Challenged Materials. According to regulations, this process cannot be implemented during a school board meeting. The process was, however, initiated the next day to ensure we are providing quality, age-appropriate materials for our students.
On September 24, the circulation of these books was immediately suspended while a committee reviews and makes recommendations about the text. Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services Sloan Presidio initiated the review process and two committees, led by our Library Services Coordinator, will be convened. All high school families were sent a letter soon after to inform them of this review process and suspension of the books from circulation.
FCPS has a process that involves submitting a Fairfax County Public Schools Request for Reconsideration of Library or Instructional Material form for texts, as outlined in Regulation 3009. This request is then submitted to the Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services.
Each committee will include two teachers, two parents, one school-based administrator, one member of the Equity and Cultural Responsiveness team, and two high school students. Each year, we identify potential committee members by working with our schools and regions. The committee members are randomly selected from the list. We will ensure that students selected to participate are 18 years of age given the concerns regarding these specific titles. The committee will submit a recommendation to the Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services, who ultimately makes the decision regarding the availability of the books in our school libraries.
As you can see, she clearly is really good at her job. If that job involves avoiding responsibility.
Seriously, does this woman really think this is good enough? The books were recommended by the Young Adult Library Services division of the American Library Association. She should be calling for those people to be brought up on charges and their organization blacklisted from providing books and other materials to students across the country.
But she won't. This is because local officials always defer their responsibilities up the chain and try to avoid all accountability in the process. Years ago, I attended a town hall with a delegate and county supervisor. The meeting overwhelmingly focused on the problems our local community faced with immigrants (mostly the "illegal" ones). Their excuse? That's not our job, it's a Federal matter.
The truth is, most local officials, especially the elected ones, are there because they are looking for an easy job with no responsibility. This is why the parents revolting all over the country scares them.
And apparently, it scares the Beast as well because the Beast damn well knows that elections at all levels are won locally.