Lack of Clarity About Removal of Books at CCS

By KRISTIAN CONNOLLY
COOPERSTOWN

Classic dystopian novels such as Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and George Orwell’s “1984” often describe societies in which books are either thought to be threatening and dangerous to the dominant social structure and should be destroyed, or they are useful tools employed by those who hold power in an effort to control the population at large. Or both at the same time.

So it comes with some amount of irony, and wonder, that the library of the Cooperstown Central School Jr./Sr. High School was the setting Wednesday, August 14, when both titles were among the thousands of books—both recent and older titles—unanimously approved for removal from CCS libraries and classrooms by the Board of Education. 

Also ironic? One of the main topics of discussion at last Wednesday’s BOE meeting was Universal Pre-K and whether the program is financially feasible for the district. The list of books to discard that was approved by the BOE after the UPK discussion contains a lot of titles that any children’s library would want for their 4-year-old patrons and their families.

But eliminating those titles for good may not be the whole story, said CCS District Superintendent Sarah Spross in an e-mail to a couple of days later. 

Spross indicated that district materials are reviewed annually, and when asked whether a title appearing on the list meant that it no longer is available to students and educators in the district, Spross said, “Not necessarily, as some of the materials are being discarded because of their condition.” Spross later added that “in regard to the library culling process, I will need to defer to the librarians and will provide more information once they return to school in September.”

While there have been instances in the past few years when the BOE has been asked to approve the removal of books, what is different about last Wednesday’s request, by comparison, is the size and scale of the list and the confusion, at present, around what exactly it means for a title to appear on the list.

According to the memo that accompanied the densely packed 287-page list of books to be eliminated, sent to the BOE from Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Amy Kukenberger, “several teachers and school librarians” looked at materials in order to “[identify] those that are outdated or no longer aligned with the current curriculum” so that “educational resources remain relevant, accurate and effective.” 

There was no mention in the memo about using criteria that identified materials that were no longer in good shape, or otherwise physically compromised for classroom/library use. Or information about retaining any copies of titles on the list. Or whether student input was sought by those coming up with the list of discarded materials.

Nor was there any indication from the memo or from Spross that the culling process was related to the digitalization of the collection or the digital use of those same materials in the classroom. Page 1 of the list itself simply carried the heading, in bold print: “Books to destroy that are no longer utilized or dated for the current curriculum.”

Neither the Firemen of America nor the Ministry of Truth could be reached for comment, though the American Library Association noted in its most recent annual report that “4,240 unique book titles [were] targeted for censorship in 2023—a 65% surge over 2022 numbers—as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources.” 

Many of the titles on recent “most challenged/banned” lists published by the ALA can be found among the books to be discarded by CCS. Though again, Spross could not say whether all copies of those titles are no longer available to students and teachers in the district. 

Titles like John Green’s award-winning 2005 novel “Looking for Alaska,” which features a protagonist said to be in the mold of Holden Caulfield, from J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” (also on the CCS discard list, and ALA “challenged” lists). Green, who also wrote the popular young-adult novel “The Fault in Our Stars” (also on the CCS discard list, and ALA “challenged” lists), aimed “Looking for Alaska” toward a high-school audience. “The New York Times” has described the novel as “a coming-of-age story that includes references to drug use and sex.”

The book was the fourth most-challenged book in America during the 2010s, according to the ALA. An online search of the CCS Jr./Sr. High School Library the same week as the August 14 meeting says there is one copy of “Looking for Alaska” on the shelves. The list just approved by the BOE has one copy of “Looking for Alaska” set for disposal. 

That is not to say the list only leans in one direction. For example, current Republican U.S. vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” is also on the discard list. And for the moment, there appears to be one copy currently sitting on library shelves at CCS. 

At the time of its publication and amid the political environment that resulted in Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidency later that same year, one commentator noted about Vance’s book: “You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance.”

Has Vance’s memoir already become irrelevant, inaccurate, and ineffective toward educating young minds about the world they will soon be asked to inherit as adults?

When asked when the last time the district undertook such a project to discard books, Spross said, “Typically, these materials are reviewed on an annual basis.  This list included materials that had been updated and placed in storage from previous years.”

Iron String Press reviewed BOE meeting minutes from the past four full school years, and found that there were eight occasions when the BOE was asked to specifically weigh in on books. The five most recent occurrences before August 14 were requests to approve single-title purchases or discards of classroom textbooks.

The first instance from the July 2020-June 2024 time period was in the summer of 2020, amid the national conversation on race and police violence in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In August 2020, the BOE approved the purchase of 10 titles for use in Grades 7-12 English. It is the only documented time in the past four years that the BOE has been publicly asked to approve the purchase of individual fiction and non-fiction titles in a batch approval. And the only time at all that non-textbook purchases were submitted to the BOE for approval. 

Two of those titles—2017’s “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas and 2014’s “Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson—appear on the discard list just approved by the BOE this month. But again, it’s unclear what that could mean.

Searching through those recent CCS BOE minutes, the only instance discovered that was demonstrably similar to last Wednesday’s request took place in May 2021, when Library Media Specialist Michelle Hitchcock requested BOE approval to remove just over 1,000 books from the library’s shelves due to a pending renovation of the library space. 

At the time, Hitchcock noted in a memo accompanying the request that due to the renovation project, the number of available fiction shelves in the library “will shift from 70 to 15. Of those 55 shelves I am losing, I will not be able to replace about 40 of them when I place the collection back on the shelves. Duplicate copies are being given to classroom libraries when they are in good condition and of high-interest and currency. For this reason, the weeding process has been very systematic and intentional.”

Hitchcock’s list in 2021, containing approximately 1,200 items, was 27 pages long—less than 10 percent of the page total of the list recently approved by the BOE. The 2021 list, which came about because of a significant reduction in available library space, also has a noticeably larger font than the 2024 list, making it very likely that the 2024 list is in the ballpark of 10,000-15,000 items. None of which appear to have been chosen due to disappearing space in the school buildings.

In an e-mail sent a couple of days after the BOE’s recent action, board President Pete Iorizzo noted that the BOE’s responsibility with regard to “curriculum evaluation” equates to “the Curriculum Committee [being] part of the decision-making process regarding all things teaching and learning.” In Kukenberger’s memo to the BOE, neither the full BOE nor its Curriculum Committee were cited as participants in developing the list of teaching and learning materials to discard from classrooms and libraries. 

Added Spross: “The [Curriculum Committee] is routinely involved in the decision-making process regarding new textbooks and instructional materials. Specifically, the instructional team routinely examines new materials, assures alignment with standards, graduation requirements, and existing materials and makes a recommendation to the curriculum and extracurricular committee. This is discussed at committee level prior to making the full recommendation to the Board. As new materials are integrated into the educational program, old materials are removed.”  

So if books are marked for disposal due to their being deemed “outdated or no longer aligned with the current curriculum” by CCS instructional and library staff, does the BOE have a say in those decisions?

“The work of determining book-by-book which of them meet with current learning standards is best left to the librarians, teachers and administrators who are experts in such matters,” said Iorizzo. “The board would not be involved in that specific process.” 

The fact remains, however, that the BOE is charged with the responsibility to decide whether to carry out such a book-removal process, and BOE members are provided with the list in advance of the board making its decision. Librarians, teachers and administrators are not empowered to take the step of approving disposal. If they were, it would be unnecessary to ask the BOE to vote on whether to accept the plan in a publicly warned meeting.

With no discussion taking place August 14 with regard to the specific items on the discard list (there was a brief, non-specific chat related to how to discard the thousands of books), the BOE unanimously approved the resolution to “accept the recommendation to [discard materials] that are obsolete, surplus, or unusable by the District.”

Did members of the public have a chance to weigh in on what books would be removed from the formal youth education center of the local community?

“The list is publicly available, and of course feedback on any matters before the Board is always welcomed,” said Iorizzo. “But the district doesn’t specifically solicit feedback on the disposal of books.”

The full list of books being disposed of can be viewed at LIST FOR THE BOARD 08.14.2024.pdf (boarddocs.com)