NAMPA, Idaho — The Nampa School District board of trustees held a special meeting Monday night. Among other discussed issues, they had an information item on developing a process for challenged books within the school district.
The information item pertained to developing two official documents, one on adopting new material in the school district, and another on reconsidering challenged materials.
The school board appeared to be optimistic about the documents, but they want to make revisions before approving the processes. Revisions will be presented during future public meetings.
The school districts decision to develop an official process for adopting and reconsidering materials comes after the board’s May 9 meeting where three of the board’s five members voted to remove 22 books from the district’s libraries “forever,” citing concerns about “pornography.”
“I just believe some of those books should not be in the library because I know how kids are, they are going to go find those books and look at what's in there and I just think schools ought to be a safe place,” said one board member during last month's meeting.
According to Brian Coffey, an English teacher at Nampa High School and president of the Nampa Education Association, when the board decided to pull the long list of books there was already a process in place for challenging books if that were to happen.
“The new procedure that was being used on a trial basis involved creating a group of stakeholders that included parents, administrators, and certified staff, to actually review any book that was challenged and the idea was to have this working group read the books to know what was happening, summarize them and make a recommendation to the board so that the board wouldn't have to read every single book,” Coffey previously told KTVB.
However, the board chairman decided the current procedure was not straightforward and that they shall collaborate on a new one.
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