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On February 27 and 28, a TickTok video of me in my capacity as Vice President of Lowell’s Board of Education was posted on at least three FaceBook pages: Boone’s Afterparty, Let Them Be (formerly Let Them Play) and Michigan Liberty Leaders. The video lists some facts, but the rest is pure conjecture and outright lies. And while I’m not concerned my reputation will suffer from this, I’m done letting certain people trash—with impunity—the reputation of Lowell Area Schools and its employees.
The facts in the video: My name, board position, and verbatim comments from April 2021 LBOE meeting minutes.
The context (not in the video): The answer to my question about books the Seuss Foundation had stopped publishing: LAS has 7 of the 8 titles, but only one is regularly checked out—by an adult. Discussion resulted in the group conclusion that these books aren’t unduly influencing our students. Once they leave our shelves through the regular process of culling uncirculated titles, they won’t return.
I still hold the opinion, which is my right as a citizen, that these eight titles don’t belong on LAS shelves, but it’s a ridiculous waste of time to formally challenge books almost no one is reading. The video’s creator should look for proof of Board action to remove them. They won’t find one. And insinuations that I tried to remove them by underhanded means are lies.
Now to the accusation that I want pornography on LAS library shelves. Normally, I wouldn’t dignify this with a response, but it directly relates to false claims against the district. Disgusting as it is, most pornography—for adults—has 1st Amendment protection. The two types of pornography NOT protected are obscenity and child pornography.
Obscenity is the issue here because book-banning zealots use the trigger word “pornography” to incite anger. They insist LAS library shelves are rife with it, and the Board VP thinks that’s just fine. Lies, of course. There is no legal test for pornography, only for obscenity. It’s the Miller Test, established by the Supreme Court in Miller v California (USSC 1973) and detailed in the LAS media center’s FAQ’s, for those seeking the facts. Nothing available to LAS students through our media center fails the Miller Test. None of the accusations against LAS from this “concerned” parent group in the last eighteen months, particularly about books, will hold up in a court of law. So, they resort to social media to stir up the court of public opinion.
Their misguided efforts to tar people’s reputations and trash Lowell Area Schools would better serve the children they claim such concern for if they addressed the very real problem our young people face—the proliferation and easy availability of internet porn. The LAS library system allows parents 100% control over what their students read from the district’s collection. It seems, however, that this “concerned” group thinks only they should determine what everyone else’s children should be able to access in LAS libraries.
Laurie C. Kuna
Vice-president
Lowell Board of Education
We have never blocked any parent’s access to their child’s school library account. That is incorrect. If you are having issues accessing your child’s library account, please contact me. You are welcome to monitor any books your child checks out from the library at any time. Additionally, we do not feel that we have any books that are inappropriate. We understand that some parents may disagree and we understand that some titles may be relevant for some age groups and not for others, therefore, we give all parents the option to restrict any titles, topics, or genres from their child(ren)’s account. Parents have 100% control over what their children are able to check out from the LAS school libraries. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.
Mrs. Beachler
LAS Library Media Director/School Librarian
Here is why the books should be removed and not compared to the internet porn at my home.
Here is the problem when my child is home I can supervise her internet use and talk to her when if porn pops up. When she is at school the teachers do not have time to individually supervise me child when she is on. (Initially when my child started school I said no the computer access and the teacher said that the school uses programs on the computer, so for her education purposes I felt I had no choice to agree to computer access at school) Hopefully the school has proper filtering in place to prevent porn and a tech team that knows and cares about what they do.
Same with taking my child to the library, she picks out the books and we review them. Starting in second grade my child’s teachers stop letting the kids bring the books home taking my ability away to review the books that she is reading.
Since this book issue has started the school has now announced that I am allowed to block my child from certain genres and book titles as I see fit. But I still can’t access their school library account. So the school is still not allowing me full access to what my child is taking out of the library.
So with that being said if the school’s not going to allow me to fully monitor what my child is reading or what the teacher is reading to my child then they need to do the monitoring which means removing the books that are inappropriate.
If the families that want those books be read by their children they can either purchase them or take them to the local library and borrow them.