001hey everybody just checking my sound and i see all um seven of us board members here so we'll start in just a minute madame vice chair are you ready for us to start tonight yes i am okay i want to make certain that you can hear me and yes i can thank you thank you madam chair it looks like eva is in as an attendee rather than a panelist so she may need to be promoted okay mr jones or mr shofield do you see either dubison you should be promoted thank you so much yes i see that she is okay okay welcome everybody good evening tonight is monday january 31st 2022 and i call this meeting to order the orange county schools board of education pledges to our families staff students and the greater community
002to conduct our business in a courteous and productive manner showing respect for fellow board members staff and citizens the board asks that citizens to conduct themselves with the same courtesy towards all staff members and each other as per board policy robert's rules of order will be used to conduct meetings as we begin our work this evening i would like to recognize that orange county schools was established on land previously settled by the ancestors of the ocunichi ban of the sappone nation this board has made a commitment to honor and respect the heritage of indigenous and all members of our ocs community to work to undo decades of racial harm and to build the best of our ability a community that fosters a sense of belonging for all of our students so that they may thrive
003and succeed please join me now for a moment of silence thank you i have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda okay i have a motion for miss mckenzie and a second from the stevens uh ms smiley yes ms stevens yes mr atherton yes i vote yes miss houser yes ms mckenzie yes and dr moore yes great thank you we are going to start with a policy overview this is a special called meeting of the orange county schools board of education and in accordance with policy 3210 the purpose of this meeting is to consider a parent's appeal of the decisions of a school-based committee and a central office-based committee to retain three books in the cedar ridge high school library i've asked vice chair stevens who is also our board's policy committee chair to provide a
004brief overview of policies 3200 and 3210 thank you ms stevens thank you i'm needed all right good evening for the purposes of this meeting we will focus on policies 3200 selection of instructional materials and parental inspection and objection to instructional materials the document that is posted in our agenda spells out the process to this point our focus is 3210 because the materials or books in question are considered supplementary as they are not a classroom assignment or classroom materials the procurement of materials must be accomplished in accordance with law including the first amendment of the united states constitution and selection guidelines from the north carolina bill of rights excuse me the library bill of rights the first amendment protects not only freedom of speech but also the freedom to access what is published i trust that
005we all have uh gone through 3200 b where it's spelled out to provide a wide range of materials that will enrich and support the curriculum to provide materials that will stimulate growth and factual knowledge to provide a background of information that will enable students to comprehend their role as citizens in society and to make intelligent judgments in their daily lives to provide resources representing various points of view on controversial issues so that students as young citizens may develop under guidance the skills of critical thinking and critical analysis to provide resources representative of many religious ethnic and cultural groups in our nation and the contributions of these groups in our american heritage and to provide principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of material of the highest quality in order to ensure
006a comprehensive collection appropriate for all users also according to policy our discussion or decision excuse me will be uh binding for the next two years i'll turn the floor back over to the hands of madame chair thank you so much vice chair stevens any questions for mrs stevens hey we understand our purpose here tonight okay now i would like to um invite dr felder our superintendent to provide an overview timeline of how the cedar ridge high school review committee and the district review committee responded to this complainant's request and what they ultimately decided thank you dr phil good evening yes good evening and thank you uh chair doyle uh good evening vice chair stevens and to the entire board our staff and families and so indeed uh the board has a copy of a timeline
007of actions regarding the request for consideration of materials with regards to uh lawn boy out of darkness and genderqueer uh per policy 3200 and so the purpose of this timeline is to highlight that the process was followed by both the complainant and district staff per policy 3200 the first section outlines the actions per the school's review committee uh the second section outlines the actions per uh the district's review committee and last but not least where we are today with regards to uh the board review committee so any questions with regards to the timeline okay no questions for dr felder thank you so much dr felder thank you okay so as mentioned under policy 3210 the board will review the matter make a final decision in an open meeting which is what we're doing now the
008board must decide one whether the books will be retained in the media center with or without additional conditions and two whether the board's decision should apply district wise or just at the original school and dr felder has shared that the decision made by the district review committee was that they be district-wide a district-wide decision um we will vote on the books one at a time beginning with genderqueer so i have an opening statement to read about genderqueer and then i will um give each board member a minute or two to share thoughts before um i ask for a motion to retain or remove the book so in case you have not had a chance to read genderqueer board members read the books in their entirety and genderqueer a memoir by maya kobaby is the 2020
009american library association alex award winner and also a 2020 still wall honor book kebabe uses pronouns similar to they them but without the th so they sound like am air i read this beautiful book which described kobabi's journey in identifying as a non-binary young adult i especially appreciated the author's description of their feelings about her body as a non-binary person including feelings of confusion and disgust which over time ease as kobabi develops a healthy sense of self-love and respect i was also deeply touched by the loving and supportive family and community that helped maya kababe in their journey my hope is for the ocs community to be equally supportive of our lgbtq plus student staff and families one of our ocs high school students shared with our board the following which i'm sharing with you
010tonight with permission quote seeing these books on the shelves makes me feel like there is a place for me lgbtq kids deserve to be seen nobody likes to feel alone and keeping these books on the shelves will ultimately save lives end quote i applaud our school staff for selecting this important book for our cedar ridge high school library and i support our school and district review committee's decisions to keep this book available to students at the high school level i would want that to be the case at the high school level throughout the district so at this time um board members we can go around and everyone can have a turn to comment um or pass and then we'll take a motion and will can we start with you yeah uh the fir i have
011a question before um i'd like the attorney to talk about general statute 14-90.1 uh obscenity and then also talk about general statute 14-190.15 on uh deemed harmful to minors just so we have perspective as that's been brought up many times sure i'd be happy to thank you so these are both criminal statutes and chapter 14-190.1 is the obscenity statute and that applies regardless of age which renders it unlawful to distribute material that is obscene um and legally that's a fairly narrow term you know we we have heard it used a lot of different ways but in in the legal sense it's a narrow category that you know there are many things that are sexually explicit that are not considered obscenity and so what the statute says is to be considered obscenity the work has to
012describe in a patently offensive way sexual conduct which is defined later in the statute that the average person applying contemporary community standards relating to the description of sexual matters would find that the material taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex and that this material lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific value and that it is not protected by the first amendment or the constitution of the united states or north carolina um and so generally that is something would have to material would have to meet all of those definitions to be considered obscenity north carolina also has a statute the second statute you mentioned which is 14-190 15 which is regarding dissemination of material that's harmful to minors and the dissemination of obscenity is a felony or can be the harmful to
013minor statute in general is a misdemeanor but to distribute to minors material that is harmful to minors which is material that depicts sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity and that when the work is taken as a whole and again that's in the statute the work is taken as a whole not an excerpt that the average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material has a predominant tendency to appeal to the prurient interest of minors in sex and so um and pruriend is not a term we use um all that frequently anymore but it really references to something that is intended to arouse or intended to appeal to the sexual interests as opposed to just describing something that is sexual um so it has to meet that and that the average adult person
014applying contemporary community standards would find that the depiction of sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity in the material is patently offensive to prevailing standards concerning concerning what is suitable for minors and that the material lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific value so again all of those things must be true in order for something to be considered harmful to minors in the criminal sense all right thank you so much so my comments tonight are really focused on uh the review and looking through everything the school did the district did i think they did a great job and uh dr felder really appreciate your your letter on the details describing all that that have been shared one of the things that i think is very important that i don't think is realized is that we do
015offer the ability for people to decide they don't want their child to see this material and they can opt out versus opting out everyone so i think that's a significant item the only other comment i have is i i do i do and concerned with the age-appropriateness and making sure that that is always considered as we look at books and that's my comments for this okay thank you thanks will bonnie oh bonnie you're muted i think i i don't have specific comments on this book um i have some general comments but i don't have and i appreciate will's questions because they create context for my feeling about this topic okay hillary thank you can you hear me okay great um as we review tonight the this board has a policy for how materials are selected
016for our media center collections my votes for all three books will be based on trust and respect for the professionals who made the original selections and again reviewed their inclusion in our high school campuses and catalogs i support genderqueer and find it especially important because we know that transgender and non-binary youth face elevated risks for depression thoughts of suicide and attempting suicide compared to youth who are cisgender and straight having resources for our lgbtq plus students is something this board must absolutely protect and i just want to mention that thetrevorproject.org is a great place to find more information about transgender non-binary and gender non-conforming people and it's an excellent resource for anyone who needs more information thanks thanks hilary jennifer um i'm sorry i lost my thought um yeah this book is um it's not
017for instructional purposes in the classroom and i feel like it should be made available to um age-appropriate orange county high school students as a non-circulation affirming resource so that the book does not reach the hands of students who do not have parental consent thank you thanks jennifer sarah thanks um so i believe that this book has serious literary value in our high school libraries if you read the book and take it as a whole it describes the author's genuine struggles with gender identity and sexual orientation while growing up and that's not something salacious or pornographic that's clearly not the story the author is telling um and as to age-appropriateness we have a lot of evidence that the book is appropriate for high schoolers from the expertise of the school library community this book has received
018national literary awards and recognition related to being a valuable book for teenagers so kerry had mentioned the alex being an alex award winner that's given to 10 books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults age 12 through 18. the school library journal gave it a starred review and said it's a quote great resource for those who identify as non-binary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand and it was also the 2019 nominee for young adult library services great graphic novels for teens so upon review i can see why the two previous committees determined it was appropriate to have in our high school collection and i will not vote to ban this book over the expertise of both the school library
019field and our own educators thank you sarah brenda sorry had to unmute so i i wanted to to men to say because i think i've heard this we're not talking about putting uh genderqueer or any of these books in the hands of a six-year-old we're talking about our high school here uh i think that's that is very important um and uh as a librarian i i don't ban books um i try to get books in hands of as many uh people as possible because we need to learn from them and as i think sierra just said there is so much that can be uh learned from if you read them as a whole not taking them out of context highlighting a line or or a paragraph here or there so um i support our committee
020and our superintendents superintendent's recommendation thank you thanks brenda um thanks everyone for sharing your your thoughts and your questions and um at this time i would like to ask for a motion motion to keep genderqueers in high school libraries throughout our district second okay you have a motion from hillary in a second from sarah and i think that uh addresses the two tasks we had both keeping it and across the district so um may i ask one question the policy states that i think that the default or that the decision may extend for up to two years miss mckenzie is that your intent that it lasts for two years can we make it longer no it's two years in the policy that's why i said that in my statement that we would it would be
021two years can we wait a policy and make it longer you could you could with with a two-thirds vote i believe um to waive the policy and have it be indefinite well my motion was then to waive policy and make it indefinite and i second that okay we have a motion from hillary in a second from sarah mcstevens yes will yes okay i vote yes bonnie yes uh hillary yes ma'am jennifer yes sarah thank you so much all right can can i make a ask a question or a comment and sure um as the board makes comments here or votes for things um are we on usurping the school's authority to make decisions about books so does the board will the board's decision override or or undermine a school's ability to make a decision about
022what it wants to do with the book in the future and let me ask also is does the decision of this board bind future boards the answer to the second question is easier which is the decision of this board is binding until a majority of the board makes a different decision and it can be a majority of whoever is on the board at the time that that decision is made and with regard to i mean i i think that this decision does mean that the book is not going to be removed from the collection um i i would not interpret it to mean that the normal process of selection of instructional materials could not continue selection and review that the media technology committees do but i'm open to you know whether or not that comports
023with the board's intent i would not assume that that there was intent to change that process dr felder do you have any concerns to that regard i do not thank you okay is that answer your question bonnie yep thank you great so if we go on to the second book our second book is lawn boy by jonathan edison lomboy is a 2019 american library association alex award winner this semi-autobiographical story traces 23 year old mike munoz's obstacles and efforts to overcome the low expectations and limited environment he's trying to rise above mike shares that throughout his life living in transient housing he often found the most stability at the public library but was always trying to find more books that told his story a young man who finds passion and solace in landscape design mike
024is determined to write the great american landscape novel along the way he deals with racism as a mexican-american youth as well as confusion about current feelings and past experiences in regards to his sexuality in the end he finds a loving partner who encourages him in his dreams and sense of self one of the takeaway messages of this book to me is that regardless of what our stories are they are worth telling and hearing i fully support our school media specialist in selecting this book for cedar ridge high school i support our school and district review committee's decision to keep law envoy available to high school students and i would hope we would do so across our district high schools and um will do you have comments that you'd like to make uh my comments are
025the same from for all of all of these um so thank you for uh giving me the chance to say something okay bonnie yes i i'm sorry i should have said this the first time so i'll just kind of in general say that when i first saw the images and passages that parents brought to our attention they made me uncomfortable and once i read the books and had a context to understand these images and understand the stories that that under underlied them i think that's a word um i felt a lot better although i must say i wish the authors would have or editors could have been a little less graphic that's just a personal opinion and that has um not that is that's just a personal opinion and i spoke to a lot of
026teachers administrators counselors parents and more and i feel uncomfortable about selecting specific books as a board member i think that's the job of our schools working with students and families i do believe that it is our job to assure that these books comply with law and board policy which has been nicely articulated today and for each one of these books i believe they do i will support upholding the recommendations of the school and district review committees and i would prefer that our motions were in the context of keeping the authority in our schools and districts and district committees thank you bonnie okay um hillary thank you um longboy is a coming-of-age story and while there are some references to sexuality it is not at all the focus of the novel the lessons about wealth inequality
027racial injustices capitalism laboring under capitalism and working through difficult family dynamics are thought provoking and age appropriate if this book was banned from our collections i honestly can't imagine what would follow afterwards i support keeping it i support our lgbtq plus representation in our media centers and i support our lgbtq students and staff members today and every single day and that's really all i have to say thank you thanks hilary jennifer sorry um yes i feel the book supports high school students who struggle to find um self-discovery and relatable stories and um i support the decision of dr felder and the review committee thank you thank you jennifer sarah i also believe this book has literary value in our high school libraries um others have described the book i'll say kirkus reviews summarize longboy as
028quote a book about triumphing over obstacles and obstacles and obstacles and more obstacles and i believe that our young people should have access to a story with that theme of continuous perseverance in terms of age appropriateness again there's evidence that the book is appropriate for high schoolers from the expertise of the school library community this book also won a 2019 alex award given to books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18. so upon review i understand why the committee's determined it was appropriate to have in our high school collection and i will not vote to ban this book over the expertise of both the library field and our own educators thank you sarah brenda yes so again uh this book has won awards and uh the book bears
029literary merit as a work of fiction and um i will not vote to ban this book thank you everybody for your comments and at this time i would like to entertain a motion and remember that we want to include whether this is district-wide and once again um dr felder's team wanted this to be a district-wide decision that was their decision as a district review committee um and also a time frame madam chair a motion to waive policy to definitely include lawn boy in our high school media centers back in okay i have a motion from ms mckenzie in a second from ms smiley um mr atherton yes okay i vote yes miss houser yes miss mckenzie yes dr moore sorry yes okay uh ms smiley yes and ms stevens yes great thanks everybody we are
030now ready to discuss the third and final book which is out of darkness by ashley hope perez out of darkness was the 2016 winner of the tomas rivera mexican-american children's book award specifically in the works for older readers category this award was developed in 1995 by the texas state university college of education specifically to recognize authors and illustrators whose work speaks to the mexican-american experience the book also was a 2016 american library association prince award honor book i personally love this beautiful heartbreaking and excruciating piece of historical fiction set in 1937 east texas where there was an explosion at the new london school a school designed to serve only white children the two protagonists are naomi who is mexican-american but lives with a white stepfather and wash who is african-american wash and naomi forge a
031friendship and later a romance that they must keep secret because of the deep racism in the community reading how challenging simply living their lives is for these two teenagers because of racism that turns at times violent provides an opportunity to develop empathy and understanding especially for readers like me who are white i want our high school readers to have access to this literature i'm grateful it is there at cedar ridge high school i support the school and district committee's decision to keep out of darkness on our cedar ridge high school shelves and i hope it would be available at this high school level across the district and once again i'm going to go to you will but you might it's fine if you want to pass no i i i'll say the same thing i
032said before i i just really appreciate the thoroughness of the process all of the district staff that reviewed you know the opportunity to to actually read the book ourselves and also um you know mr oil you pointing out the awards that have been uh recognized and i do support our committees and the superintendent's recommendations thank you thank you will bonnie yeah i also i um it's probably a good idea to thank parents who who raised concerns and and started a conversation about the suitability of these books um really appreciate the work of the school and the district review committees and they for their rapid and thorough reviews and to ms duversen for helping us put this in a legal um context of looking at state and federal law and i um again intend to uphold
033the the committee recommendations um district-wide thank you bunny um hillary thank you so i finished reading out of darkness this morning and in the author's note at the end of the book i came across two quotes from ashley hope perez that perfectly underscore the importance of fiction grounded around historical events such as the 1937 new london school explosion that the school is centered around she says an understandable protective impulse sometimes inspires efforts to conceal diminish or disavow such painful histories the work of this book however was to bring to light experiences and narratives that might otherwise go unacknowledged i have tried to balance the heartbreak cruelty and ignorance of my character's world with a profound attention to the forms of kindness and connection that are also possible in it and in researching this novel i
034was struck by the many ways in which whole swaths of lived experience have been largely excluded from historical accounts in part because certain communities were not deemed worthy of note in newspapers and other sources considered authoritative and reliable these silences need to be amended i hope my fiction gives readers an appetite for stories lived in the margins of spot lit scenes out of darkness is a super challenging heartbreaking read like it it was truly stirring for me but i absolutely support its conclu inclusion in our high school media center collections thank you thank you so much hilary jennifer my comments are basically still the same i still support dr felder and the review committee with their recommendations in regards to out of darkness thank you thanks jennifer sarah i believe this book has serious literary
035value in our high school libraries if you read the book as a whole while it does include some painful scenes including sexual assault it is clearly not written with the intent to appeal to prurient interests instead this is a moving and informative piece of historical fiction that helps one better understand the experience of what it was like to live in jim crow era texas as a black or mexican-american young person and in terms of age-appropriateness we have a lot of evidence that this book is appropriate for high schoolers from the expertise again of the school library committee miss doyle mentioned one award the first award you mentioned was for um children's books the prince award also is honors the best book written for teens based entirely on its literary merit each year and then i
036also wanted to note that this book is currently available available on nc kids digital library which is described as quote a first of its kind statewide ebook consortium specifically for children which was created by the north carolina public library directors association overdrive and the state of north carolina so i can see why the two previous committees of ocs educators determined that it was appropriate to have in our high school collection and i will not vote to ban this book over the expertise of the library field and our own educators thank you so much sierra brenda wow thank you sarah that was great i joined my colleagues in the library and saying that this is this this book out of darkness addresses the the social and racial unrest that of course that so many people would
037like to sweep under the rug and and i've seen observed a lot of challenges and a lot of the challenges seem to be towards um books of this nature and i'm and i wonder you know are these challenges to prohibit us from teaching certain things i support keeping this title in our high school libraries and i thank our superintendent and our committees for their hard work and um i will not be in this book thank you so much brenda at this time i'd like a motion for out of darkness madam chair i vote i motioned to wave policy to indefinitely retain out of darkness for our high school collections throughout the district thank you so much mr kensington oh that was a motion from ms mckenzie in a second from dr moore um brenda yes
038uh will yes i vote yes bonnie donnie oh sorry did you sorry yes okay hillary yes jennifer yes and sarah yes thank you everybody we have unanimously supported the conclusions of both the school committee the district uh review committee and our very own superintendent dr felder and keeping these books and making them at the at the district level and so at this time before we adjourn i would like to ask board members if they have any closing comments and please just um respectfully take a turn or show of hands either way sarah thanks carrie um i so i wanted to say you know i think it is totally appropriate for us to take each book on its merits and specifics and use this process in order to make a really specific decision for each one
039that's appropriate that's what we've done tonight i want to thank you for a smooth process in doing that um but for the historical record of this meeting i also wanted to acknowledge the broader context and ms stevens just referred to it in which we're being asked to remove these particular books so right now all over the country there is a sudden surge in book ban challenges and they are coming from organized well-funded political groups that are masquerading as so-called parents rights groups and the stated concern of any particular book challenge might be language or violence or sexual content but if you look at the books that are being targeted and these groups have lists right if you look at the lists there is a different pattern to them that we shouldn't ignore the vast majority
040of the books being challenged are either about people who are lgbtq or are about people who are black latino or indigenous these are the characters that these organized groups don't want students reading about these are the stories that they want erased from our public schools but our queer students and families and teachers exist our students and families and teachers of color exist and i do not agree with pandering to these attempts to limit students access to voices of people of color and lgbtq perspectives the context matters our students see it they know it and our marginalized students need this school board to state clearly and unequivocally that they matter and that in this district we are committed to creating learning environments where every single student belongs and is valued and where all students are taught
041to think critically and use good judgment and engage with hard history and engage in a diverse world and so i hope that our decisions tonight made that clear but in case there was any doubt i wanted to be clear that that's where i stand and i wanted to say thank you to all of the educators who took on the additional load of reading these books and considering the request to remove them at a time when y'all are already exhausting yourself for your students um and the last thing i wanted to say is it's things like this conversation tonight that get the most media attention and the most facebook chatter and i get that because it fits into a story and it's kind of sensational and obviously if we get a book challenge we've got to
042do this whole thing and make these decisions but i want to stress that where this board and this district are focused every day is on the real work of our schools that doesn't get all of this attention the work to prepare our students for success in the world and to get better and better in the places where we're falling short on that we are focused on educating children with excellence and equity and we're taking action together to get better for kids i am proud of that and i am grateful to the entire orange county schools community for your commitment to our students success despite any attempts at distraction i appreciate you thank you well said sarah hillary well i can't really follow that i echo miss miley's comments a hundred percent thank you for your
043comments miss miley so on point and i just wanted to give a special thank you to our chair harry doyle you have done an excellent job managing this and preparing for this meeting and i appreciate your hard work and management of this situation thank you hillary other board members like to make a closing comment no i will say thank you to sarah because i touched upon it on my my last comment but you said it more eloquently because it just it's troubling that all of the um challenges that are coming forth are coming to these very distinct groups and of course i'm a part of that and it's not a good feeling thank you and i'd like to um thank our students aside from hearing from parents and community members in our public comment form
044that we had available in advance of this meeting we heard from numerous students and the students were unanimous in that they wanted these books they needed these books it was already hard enough being lgbtq plus in our schools um these books were a comfort to them these books helped to develop empathy these books helped them understand their peers and echoing what brenda and sarah said um these these books speak to the stories of racial minorities and so i really appreciate our students taking the time to um make themselves heard to the board this week bonnie okay i just wanted to and i also want to thank sarah for your comments i i think they're well said um i have a question a rhetorical question that i'd like to raise for the parents who are concerned
045and um and the question i have is what are we protecting and are we protecting um an idealized notion of our humanity and if i could i don't want to speak for the board but i feel like these books and um an education in general is about building resilience and it's about making our students stronger and i grew up i'm old enough on this board to have grown up in a time where all our stories were kind of whitewashed and and um i i keep asking parents if they remember the adventures of ozzie and harriet and and nobody knows what i'm talking about but it was a time where where everybody lived in this perfect you know two car four family member perfect suburban community and and over time we finally realized that that is
046not the world that we are in and i am grateful to these authors for having put words to these stories and and images to these stories um and so i just needed to to say that so i just would like people to think about but i i'm sure this conversation is not over but i'm trying to understand what is it that people are fighting for and what are people fighting to protect because i don't understand it so thank you thank you so much bonnie will i set your hand up yes thank you i just wanted to also um just echo the comments um and i just really appreciate everyone taking time to send us their thoughts and concerns and point of view and um you know all the thoroughness that's been done through the process
047um because i feel it's so important for all of us to understand you know what is the process how we get there who we're supporting and the impacts they make on everyone so i just wanted to acknowledge that and again thank the superintendent for bringing these forward to us okay if there aren't any more closing comments jennifer do you have any no okay then i will take a motion actually dr felder do you have any closing comments oh indeed i do thank you so much uh chair doyle i want to co-sign all of the comments made tonight and to thank the orange county school board for upholding the decisions of the school and district level committees who did an absolutely excellent job of reviewing the books and making the recommendations that all three books continue
048to be retained in our high school media centers for our students access and benefit so thank you again for supporting the process and their decisions madam chair i moved to adjourn second okay i have a motion from vice chair stevens and i have a second from mrs mckenzie uh sarah yes uh miss stevens yes mr atherton yes i vote yes miss hauser yes ms mckenzie yes and doctor moore yes thank you everybody we are adjourned have a great evening you