Letter to the Editor: Open Letter to the Lowell Community

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Open Letter to the Lowell Community

The Lowell Area Schools libraries are the learning hubs of our school district. They are busy places where students can go to relax, hear a story read aloud, work individually or in groups, get tutoring, use technology resources, find a book, read, or any number of activities. They support academic achievement while helping students become lifelong learners and lifelong readers. Libraries help develop this love of reading by providing safe places for all to feel valued, welcomed and represented, where they can find books that specifically match their interests. The dedicated LAS library staff works hard to inspire, motivate, entertain, encourage, and challenge Lowell students by choosing books which represent all areas of interest, reading levels, learning styles, and curricular needs.

With almost 4000 LAS students and over 125,000 library books, maintaining book collections containing something for everyone is a complicated balance. A book may be the perfect fit for one student but not appropriate for another, either in terms of content or reading level. Our library staff continually studies the district’s collections and updates them based on the newest curricular topics, newest best sellers, student and teacher suggestions, and various book reviewing sources.   LAS library staff also utilize several criteria for rating the appropriateness of books available in the collections. The industry standard which results in most K-8 grade-level titles being rated Juvenile and most 9-12 grade-level titles rated YA (Young Adult). In addition, all book choices must fall within LAS School Board policies which follow the standards for public school districts. Board policy also offers parents the opportunity to restrict their student’s access to any book, topic, genre or material they believe conflict with their beliefs or values. Parents also have a mechanism to formally challenge a book title they do not feel belongs in the school library collection. Anyone interested in reading the Board of Education’s policies regarding curriculum, materials and books can find them on the LAS website. All of this information has also appeared in each LAS school building’s newsletter and makes it very clear that parents have complete control over the books their children check out from LAS libraries.

In spite of these clearly-stated policies, there remains a small group of parents who claim the district’s library collections contain obscene and even pornographic materials that are readily available to every LAS student. These accusations are patently false, but members of this group have been stridently outspoken at Board Meetings, in the media and on social media platforms, attacking district staff, administrators and school board members by name. To date, not a single book has been challenged via the district’s established book review procedure. Yet this group’s accusations remain.

Instead of utilizing LAS policies to officially challenge district library materials, the group members use public comment time at board meetings to read the most salacious excerpts they can find from books in the district’s collection. They misrepresent which libraries the books are in, which students have access to these books, and ignore the fact that in order to be considered obscene a work must be taken in whole, not in part.

The parent group seems to be pushing a particular political agenda and want everyone to believe that only their definition of what constitutes appropriate reading materials should be used in Lowell schools. Under the guise of wanting to “protect all children,” they insinuate that they alone are qualified to review and rate the district’s collections and decide for ALL LAS stakeholders which books are appropriate. Despite the fact that the district uses its trained library staff, industry standards and book review experts to guide the selection and placement process, the parent group seems to believe all other parents, students and staff should trust them to guide the process instead. 

We felt the need to respond to these baseless attacks in order to support our school board, administration and staff; good people who have dedicated their time, energy and expertise to benefiting the students and families in the Lowell school district. These professionals deserve to be treated respectfully and with a tremendous amount of gratitude for jobs well done. The inappropriate social media behavior and mean-spirited comments from this small group of parents are counterproductive to our educational goals of putting students first and instilling the love of reading.  We feel it is time to concentrate on teaching and learning and turn the focus back to educating students.

Steve Gough                                  Christine Beachler    
LHS Principal & Parent                  LAS Library Media Director

Additional names collected in support of this letter: