Outside the Pine-Richland Board of Education meeting in northern Allegheny County earlier this week, parents and kids lined up along the road with signs that shared one message: “No Book Bans Here.”
Everest, a third grader in the district, came to show support for the graphic novel series “Heartstopper” by Alice Oseman.
The books follow two boys — one gay and the other bisexual — as they navigate high school, and fall in love. Everest said he likes how all of the kids in the book respect one another.
“It just makes me feel comfortable,” Everest added. “It really explains me.”
And he said it might help explain other kids in the district coming to terms with their identity.
But that’s less likely to happen if it’s taken out of the school library. Pine-Richland, an affluent suburban district serving roughly 4,500 students north of Pittsburgh, is the latest school district grappling with a series of potential book bans.
The district is reviewing "Heartstopper" and 13 other books due to a spate of objections over what complainants say was sexually explicit content.
Other books in question are “All Boys Aren't Blue” by George Johnson, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. At least four were written by authors of color and more than half feature LGBTQ+ characters.
Inside the Pine-Richland School Board meeting Monday, Brittany Kindersmith, Everest’s mom, was one of more than a dozen parents urging the district not to remove these books from school libraries.
“There are queer kids at Pine-Richland High School. There are queer kids at Pine-Richland Middle School,” Kindersmith said. “Do not take these books from them because you are scandalized about a few paragraphs detailing sexual assault taken entirely out of context.”
School board members put a pause on additional restrictions while the books remain under review
Forms obtained by WESA show each of the dozen or so requests for reconsideration was submitted between Oct. 18 and Oct. 20. According to Pine-Richland superintendent Brian Miller, it’s the first round of book challenges the district has received since his tenure began a decade ago.
Critics of the books in question dominated public comment during the subsequent school board meeting on Oct. 23. Among the speakers was John Amanchukwu, a North Carolina-based pastor who was scheduled to speak prior to the meeting at a rally affiliated with Turning Point USA.
Pine-Richland school board policy allows non-resident speakers to participate in public comment if a resident says they are “represented” by the speaker. That was the case last month when former school board member Therese Dawson told the body that Amanchukwu would represent her.
He went on to read a graphic passage from “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” calling the book “pornographic” and accusing author Johnson of having an “agenda.”
The comments sparked conversation among school board members, who weighed the idea of a measure that would restrict access to the 14 challenged books while they remain under review.
Board president Greg DiTullio said that he hoped to bring a measure to the Nov. 13 meeting that would mandate that the district notify parents if their student checks out one of those challenged books.
But board members put that plan on pause Monday night, citing closed-door discussions with the district’s attorney.
The Commonwealth’s library laws state that materials — including the names and other personally identifiable information regarding books taken out of a school library — must be maintained as confidential and may not be made available to anyone, except by court order in a criminal proceeding.
Maura McInerney, legal director at the Education Law Center (ELC), said the confidentiality of student educational records is further maintained by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
But that same law also gives parents the right to access their students’ educational records.
“The confidentiality of those records in terms of disclosure to the public is clear in both circumstances. I think the issue is whether the parent is able to obtain those records,” she said, given protections at the state level.
Pennsylvania School Library Association (PSLA) president Leah Lindemann said that parents have the right to view their child’s school library checkouts as they are considered academic records.
The organization also supports parental involvement in their children’s education through communication with the school librarian, though PSLA leaders say recent book challenges across the state frequently circumvent established library policies and school librarians — the professionals trained to address questions or concerns regarding library materials.
“With such policies in place, it is particularly concerning that families and those generally concerned with the contents of the school library’s collection are not asking the school librarian for a solution that suits their needs,” PSLA president-elect Sarah DeMaria told lawmakers at a hearing on book bans last month. “To school librarians, it feels as though our professionalism is not being considered.”
Pine-Richland’s book challenges wade into a statewide debate
Tensions at Pine-Richland coincide with a surge in policy changes regarding school library materials across the region and in Harrisburg.
With 457 book challenges during the 2021-2022 school year, Pennsylvania ranked third in the nation for the most books banned, according to data from PEN America.
School board members at Hempfield Area School District, in Westmoreland County, passed provisions in August requiring librarians to submit a public list of proposed purchases for a 30-day review before placing them on the shelves and codifying definitions of “sexual content” and “hate speech/ethnic intimidation”.
According to Sharon Ward, a senior policy advisor ELC, many other school districts in Pennsylvania already have procedures through which a parent can opt their kid out of having access to particular books.
“But what we see here is that parents and community members want to restrict what other kids can read, and that is an infringement on freedom and also inconsistent with the Constitution,” Ward said.
The GOP-controlled state Senate passed a bill last month that would require schools to identify sexually explicit material, as well as create an opt-in policy that would require parents to give direct consent for their children to be provided or have access to sexually explicit content.
The legislation defines sexually explicit as showing “acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if the person is a female, breast.”
But opponents of the bill say the standards it outlines are more likely to be used to target books that depict LGBTQ characters and people of color.
Ward said that’s already true of districts already utilizing a similar lens.
“While the banner is sexual content in terms of the rhetoric, in reality, we're seeing a much narrower scope in the way that policy is being applied,” she added.
Opt-in policies would also prove arduous in school libraries, PSLA testified, especially in understaffed districts.
“Without a dedicated person, professionally trained and educated to do this work, there won’t be anyone to take note of who has been opted in or out of which books or who can check out from what collection and to enforce these rules.”
Though changes are paused for now, Pine-Richland’s next school board can weigh them again
At the Pine-Richland school board meeting Monday, directors voted to table the notification idea or any other changes to the district’s library policy. DiTullio encouraged board members to discuss it further at their December meeting when newly-elected school board members will take their seats.
Among the new members are three Republican candidates who put removing sexually explicit material from school libraries front and center in their campaigns. Their addition shifts the board even further to the right of the political spectrum.
Pine-Richland parent Nila Griffin says that as the parent of a trans daughter, the school board has sometimes made her family feel unsafe.
Griffin said the family has considered moving away, though they won’t just yet.
“We're staying because we love the admin, we love the teachers, we love the librarians and we believe in the school,” she said. “We know the majority of this community is supportive and loving. We just need to be a little bit louder about it.”
The challenged materials will stay in circulation while a committee of parents, staff and community members reviews each complaint. The district solicited community applications to join the panel earlier this month, and five representatives will be selected through a random and anonymized lottery.
Administrators say the entire review process could take months. Once the committee and school board issues its recommendations to remove the books or not, the district’s superintendent will have the final say.
