Melanie Olson-Cox loves to talk to her three children in the Lee’s Summit School District about what they’re reading. She’ll read along with them, if she’s able. She keeps an eye on their reading material, but doesn’t restrict what they read.
In 2023, she joined a district committee to review books that people asked to be removed from the district’s shelves, the majority of them for high school readers. Olson-Cox said most of the dozens of challenged library materials stayed.
“I think that's an age group that understands their rights as a reader and can manage their access to those materials,” Olson-Cox said. “But it's great to have conversations with your kids.”
But some Lee’s Summit Board of Education members said they’ve heard from parents concerned about what content their children can access in school libraries. At a November meeting, they requested district librarians look into ways parents could have more control over what their children check out.
Starting this month, parents can place their student on a restricted checkout status. Parents can call their school’s librarian and list up to 20 titles that their student won’t be able to check out.
Amy Taylor, the district’s coordinator of library and media services, said the process was the best option to meet those concerns.
“It is our mission to make sure that our students and our staff have access to information and to library instruction, and we also want to empower them to be readers and critical thinkers,” Taylor said. “We are dedicated to making sure that mission happens, but also meet the needs that were requested from community members and from our board.”
Taylor said the move won’t change the library checkout process much, but will formalize the existing procedure. She said parents have always had the option to ask school librarians to keep certain titles from their student.
Other school districts in Missouri and Kansas have grappled with similar concerns from parents about content while keeping reading materials accessible to students. High-profile book challenges prompted some districts to remind parents of existing library software that has allowed them to check what their children are reading.
Parents can place their student on a 'restricted' status
Previously, a self-checkout option meant students could circumvent that process. Now, students on the restricted list need to check out with a librarian, and their parents will receive an email every evening listing what they checked out.
Students also won’t have access to the online library through district devices.
Taylor said despite those changes, librarians' jobs will largely stay the same. She said they’ve always had conversations with families about what students are checking out, and encouraged them to be involved.
“We want them to read along with their students, whether that be reading a book to them when they're in elementary school, or reading the same copy of a book that an older child might bring home,” Taylor said.
Olson-Cox said she doesn’t see it as a change, but as making families more aware of the existing process and integrating it with existing software they use to check on students’ classes and grades.
A district spokesperson said it already has the software for the updated process.
Olson-Cox said she thinks the district’s librarians are highly trained to decide what materials they should offer in their libraries, but appreciated the district for finding a solution for parents dissatisfied with the current review system – though she’s not sure families will use it.
“If you're already involved in your students' education, and you're paying attention to what's going on, I'm not sure I felt the need to restrict materials,” Olson-Cox said. “But it's always good to be aware of what they're reading.”
A new bill would restrict who can challenge books in libraries
The Lee’s Summit School District spent thousands of dollars in 2023 reviewing books challenged by a group of five community members and one parent. Olson-Cox said some of them did not have students in the district or had not read the book they complained about.
A bill in the Missouri Legislature would require people who challenge material in public libraries or public schools to sign an affidavit affirming that they have read the entirety of the challenged material and live in the taxing district where they filed a complaint.
Other legislation would ban material considered explicit from digital libraries. Parents would also be able to sue school staff, including board members or librarians, who violate the law.
The Lee’s Summit School District retained most of its challenged books, but some parents worry more conservative members joining the school board last year mean future attempts to remove books could be more successful.
Erin Gregory, a district parent, said she thinks the new process is unnecessary.
“This seems like a move to pander to very extreme, outspoken stakeholders who actually don't even have kids in the district, who in some cases, aren't even (Lee’s Summit School District) taxpayers, to make decisions that shape the student and parent experience in this district,” Gregory said. “To me, that's a total overreach.”
Concerns about books and material available in school libraries
At a November meeting with Lee’s Summit School Board members, school librarians said they received 89 formal reconsideration requests in the 2022-23 school year, but none of them came from parents whose children had checked out a book.
According to school district documents, it didn’t receive any requests in the 2023-24 school year.
Some board members still requested that librarians explore ways for parents to be more involved in the checkout process. Board member Heather Eslick said no one intends to ban books, but review committees chose to retain books she doesn’t believe are appropriate.
Board member Bill Haley, who joined the board last April, said he’s heard from parents who are concerned about what their children can access at school.
“I don't think that parent A should tell parent B's children what books they can read,” Haley said. “But I think parent A has every right to regulate what their children are exposed to, and I think we need to have a solution that accommodates that.”
Gregory doesn’t see many parents opting into the new restriction process. If they do, she thinks it will be a small group, similar to the one that made the original book challenges.
She thinks the ideal process would look like the one already in place.
“(Librarians) are professionals, they're educated, they're trained, they know their subject matter very well. And if I see my daughter with any sort of book, I'm glad that she's reading,” Gregory said. “And if I know that she got it at school, I trust that it's on grade level and that it belongs in the library.”
