Our hearts are full. Our community has UNITED over the love of books and over $10,000 in books will be donated to support local readers! Sadly, our excitement was dampened by the reality of GCISD’s excessively complicated new policies governing all book donations, including to teachers for use at school and in classroom libraries. Book fair organizers worked tirelessly to find a way to get the donated books to students through GCISD, uncovering a policy so incredibly cumbersome that it is completely impractical, and not as parent-choice focused as some claim.
When we realized how large the donation would be, our distribution goal was to maximize impact and minimize the burden on teachers or librarians. Book fair volunteers worked all week leading up to the board meeting to find a simple process. We landed on donating Scholastic book credits so librarians and teachers could order books from a GCISD approved list, seemingly the least complicated way to get your donations to students. Obviously, it was not that simple. It turned out that the district would not accept Scholastic book credits, seemingly because Scholastic is no longer an approved vendor. The only option was for us to do the shopping and donate physical books, but book donations are subject to the same burdensome acquisition policy governing libraries and classrooms. So we dug into the policy. And don’t forget that even after all of this:
Any parent can challenge a book and, “Any material removed shall not be eligible for consideration to be added again for at least ten years.”
The District Librarian (a position currently vacant) or District Designee (who has a primary job other than this!) would have to read $10,000 worth of books in order to recommend or decline each book to the school board. They would have to then post the list on the district website for a 30 day parental review period, and make the books available for direct review upon request. Board members can request individual copies up to 15 days prior to the board review. The librarian has to acquire them, but can’t buy them, because they haven’t been approved! After the waiting period, the board would vote on any books pulled for individual consideration. Finally, the district would post a list online of approved and declined books, and the approved books could finally be acquired.
After all of that, librarians still have to decide where in GCISD to shelve the books based on reading level and content. They have to determine the books that are appropriate for the subject area and for the age, ability level, learning styles, interests, and social and emotional development of the students for whom they are selected; ensure they enrich the curriculum; meet high standards of quality; help students gain awareness of our pluralistic society; motivate students to examine their own attitudes and behaviors viewed as a whole and not excluded because of isolated passages; promote literacy; balance cost with need; incorporate accurate and authentic factual content; align with TEKS to the extent possible to develop civil knowledge; present founding documents in an objective, neutral, comprehensive and unbiased manner appropriately for grade level; and earn favorable reviews in standard reviewing sources.
It didn’t take long to confirm our original suspicion that if United for GCISD donated $10,000 in physical books it would have put an unfair burden on librarians due to the lack of clarity in the policy at all levels. In the end, we simply could not use our community’s generous donations to test a system that could take months to process, if at all. For full details, view the GCISD board policies online.
How can parents have choice over what their students read, if the book they need isn’t on the shelf?
We spoke at the November board meeting to ask again that the board reconsider this burdensome anti-literacy policy and stop removing books from the shelves. We suggested instead an opt-out policy like McKinney ISD passed, accomplishing the same goal with far fewer adverse consequences.
Join us as we continue to fight censorship and support literacy by putting excellence, respect, and independence back in GCISD.
Follow @UnitedforGCISD for more updates on the distribution of our community’s generous donations after our online United for GCISD Community Book Fair ends Nov. 18! Choose our original host location “Grapevine Convention Center” in the drop-down menu. Sales will still benefit local kids who rely on community support to have books at home and all book purchases over $25 ship free!