Christina and Robert Burris, the parents of a high school student in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, attended a November 2021 school board meeting for a particular reason: to complain about “33 Snowfish,” a novel about homeless teenagers who escape sexual abuse.
The 2003 book, written by Adam Rapp, could “traumatize” teenagers with its “shocking” content, the couple alleged.
The school board responded immediately. With one member not present, the board voted 6-0 to remove “sexually explicit” books from school libraries.
“We should throw those books in a fire,” said board member Rabih Abuismail, lamenting that public schools want kids to read more about “gay pornography” than about Jesus Christ.
Another, Kirk Twigg, said he’d like to see the books before burning them, “so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”
Residents of Spotsylvania County, a fast-growing area halfway between Richmond and the nation’s capital, soon voiced their displeasure over the board’s move, prompting it to quickly reverse the decision.
But the battle over book access wasn’t over.
Mark Taylor, the superintendent of Spotsylvania County Public Schools, last month proposed shuttering all school libraries in the district. Doing so would be a crucial cost-cutting move, he argued, noting that the school system was facing a $21.8 million funding gap. (After county officials approved a budget in April, the shortfall came out to be $10 million.)
Just days after Taylor suggested shutting down school libraries, he announced that 14 books — including “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson — would be removed from their shelves, saying they had sexually explicit content.
When a parent in Spotsylvania County challenges a book, it triggers a formal review process by a committee that includes parents, teachers and others. The 14 books removed from libraries had already been deemed acceptable by book review committees.
But Taylor has argued that the removal is justified by a Virginia law requiring schools to notify parents of “sexually explicit” content in instructional material.
“Our recent decision to remove 14 sexually explicit books from the library does NOT prohibit teachers from including them in classroom assignments with parental notification in accordance with applicable law and policy,” Taylor noted in a lengthy statement to HuffPost, adding that the district doesn’t have the resources to review all 390,000 books in school libraries for explicit content.
“In the space of one week, we found ourselves with the threat of the library being closed and books being pulled from the shelves,” Kassie Gregorio Palmer, a parent who runs a Facebook page about Spotsylvania public schools, told HuffPost.
“Prior to this, we were a well-respected school district,” Gregorio Palmer added. “My fear is that this is the new normal.”
It’s a familiar story. Conservative parents, sometimes backed by right-wing activist groups, have been objecting to books found in schools across the U.S., including in Pennsylvania, Florida and Missouri. The challenges and bans have led some educators to consider limiting the resources they make available to students, and surveys have found that the conservatives culture war is contributing to a national teacher shortage.
“At first, I didn’t think that [conservatives] were trying to gut public schools,” Gregorio Palmer said. “But more and more these days, I just don’t see how they’re not.”
Taylor said his school district was “standing up for parental rights.”
“I am a big proponent of civil liberties,” he said. “I am particularly concerned about the civil liberties of parents and their right to choose whether or not their children are exposed to sexually explicit materials in contravention of Virginia law. … Our top priority is the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to us.”
State law requires that schools have libraries on-site, so it would be hard to enact the closures that Taylor proposed. But his suggestion raised alarm in Spotsylvania about what educational resources may end up on the chopping block.
“Even during stressful budgetary seasons, removing or defunding libraries or librarians undermines the very core of learning,” said a statement from the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, a public library system that serves Spotsylvania and the surrounding area.
“We … urge the School Board to reject this possibility to ensure that Spotsylvania County students continue to benefit from the strongest educational system that can be provided.”
Spotsylvania County Supervisor Chris Yakabouski, meanwhile, said that closing school libraries was a “pretty stupid” idea.
Taylor has been a controversial figure since becoming a nominee for the superintendent role, which opened last year after the school board fired then-Superintendent Scott Baker — a former regional superintendent of the year and teacher of the year — “without cause.” Spotsylvania residents were baffled by that decision.
At the time, parents alleged that Taylor had made racist and homophobic posts on social media, and that he had suggested parents remove their children from public schools.
Taylor, who also worked in local government in another county, came with no background in education other than home-schooling his own children — one of whom cited her negative experience with his teaching to ask the board not to appoint her estranged father.
“For many, many years there was very little to do with any kind of textbook learning,” Jael Taylor wrote in a letter to the board. “To this day, I still feel like there are a lot of holes in my education.”
The next school board budget meeting is currently scheduled for Monday, and it’s unclear what the board will do to address the funding gap. But the fact that the superintendent would propose closing libraries amid a faux outrage over books has left local residents worried about the state of public schools.
“Even if they don’t close the libraries, it doesn’t mean they’re supporting a strong public school system in Spotsylvania,” Gregorio Palmer said. “Everything is still not fine.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
If you’re a teenager who has run away from home or a teenager who is thinking of running from home, or if you know somebody who is, visit the National Runaway Switchboard or call 1-800-RUNAWAY.
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