Saturday, October 5, 2024
DE PERE — The Unified School District of De Pere (USDDP) is responding to a challenge it received about six library books some parents feel are inappropriate for students.
Three of the books are part of the high school library’s collection.
Superintendent Chris Thompson said the protocol for responding to complaints was underway and being handled first at the school principal level. If the complainant feels the response isn’t satisfactory, they can submit a further complaint, and a book review board will be convened, he said.
Printouts of excerpts from one of the books, Lucky by Alice Sebold, circulated among attendees of Monday’s board meeting.
“This does not belong in our schools; this does not belong in our children’s minds, ever,” board member Brittony Cartwright said. “This doesn’t need policy; it needs to be removed.”
She started to read one of the excerpts aloud but became emotional three sentences in.
“This is detailing rape in explicit detail,” she said. “It’s disgusting. Policy be damned; is any of this acceptable for our children to read? I am disturbed by this. It made me feel sick. I’m emotional right now because it’s so disgusting. Rape is real. There are so many people that I know that I’ve had sexual harassment and things similar. I know people who have been raped.”
Board member Jeff Dickert said context mattered and asked what the context of the scene was.
“Context doesn’t matter when you’re explicitly detailing rape,” Cartwright said. “There is no context that makes this OK for children to read. … It does not belong in our schools.”
Cartwright said she wanted to know which librarian was responsible for procuring the book, which is part of the high school library’s collection.
Board president Adam Clayton twice reprimanded people from the audience for speaking out of turn when they vocalized agreement with Cartwright.
Lucky is a 1999 memoir about surviving rape by Madison-native Alice Sebold.
It details the author’s own rape in 1980 when she was a student in another state.
The title comes from police officers who told Sebold that she was lucky she hadn’t been murdered.
The book also covers the trial and conviction of a black man for the rape.
The book and Sebold drew criticism three years ago when the man imprisoned for the crime was exonerated, having been mistakenly identified and wrongfully convicted. He served 16 years.
Two other high school titles challenged are Sold by Patricia McCormick and Tricks by Ellen Hopkins.
Dickert said he was willing to let the complaint resolution process play out.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for us to see if a process that we as a board approved but haven’t used yet works the way that we hope it will,” Petersen said. “For our own understanding, for everybody’s understanding who’s in this room, we will probably face challenges again, so let’s talk about it when we have a full set of information.”
The board is tentatively slated to review Policy No. 9130 at its next meeting, unless a book complaint review committee convenes.
Thompson said if a committee convenes, the board will delay its review of the policy until after it completes its work.
