ELKHORN, Wis. — Over 400 books in the Elkhorn Area School District were put under review after a district parent submitted a challenge.
The 444 books were housed in middle school and high school libraries.
Superintendent Jason Tadlock said he had heard “rumblings” about a potential complaint, but did not anticipate a challenge of this size.
“We did have an open records request for a list of all the books at our school libraries back in August,” he said. “Since that time, though, we had not heard any specificity or had any challenges or complaints or questions related to any of the books in our libraries.”
The books were temporarily removed from the shelves per the district’s policy. The ones from the middle school have since been returned.
Tadlock said while some books had similar subject matter, there was no singular pattern to the challenged books.
“I couldn’t say that it was a specific genre or a specific type,” he said. “It was an all-inclusive list, including a lot of books that people would be shocked to find on there.”
Per the district’s policy, the books are reviewed by the principal of the school involved. While Tadlock said some of the books may be moved or restricted after the review, he doesn’t anticipate any will be banned.
He said it’s still a difficult process.
“I could probably list to any individual out in the community that this is a G movie, a PG movie, PG-13, R, X or XXX and everyone’s going to have a good sense of what that is,” Tadlock said. “No such ratings system exists for books along those lines.”
Throughout this process, Tadlock said he’s heard a lot of feedback from parents. While some are appreciative of the review process, he said most aren’t.
“The vast majority… are very upset, disappointed that a book challenge of this size was made, that there was that disruption,” Tadlock said. “A lot of them expressed that they feel that it’s a waste of district resources.”
He said this disruption will have them rethinking their review process at the school board’s policy committee meeting in January.
“We’ll probably take out the provision that requires the item to be removed from circulation upon a challenge,” Tadlock said. “That’s probably been the single biggest disruption.”
The principals’ decisions can be appealed to the superintendent and a committee consisting of a librarian and the district’s director of instruction. That committee’s decision can then be appealed to the school board.
Tadlock said they’re working through the process as quickly as possible to make sure there are no more interruptions.