Citizen Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Material, Text, or Resource

Name of Requestor:

Address:

Phone:

Complainant Represents: 

Him/Herself 

Organization or Group -- please identify by name: 

MATERIAL QUESTIONED (text, audiovisual, or other) 

Title: 

Author:

Copyright Date:

Revised December 2021

Please respond to the following questions in detail. 

1. In what course and grade level is this material currently being used? 

2. Did you read, view, or hear the entire work or material? 

3. To what material within the text or resource do you object? Please be specific: cite pages, photos, illustrations, etc. 

4. What of value is in the material? 

5.Explain your perspective: what do you feel might occur as the result of a student reading, viewing, or listening to this material? 

6. For what age group or grade level would you recommend this material? 7. Are you aware of the teacher’s purpose in using this material? 

8. What do you believe is the theme or purpose of this material? 

Revised December 2021

9. What would you prefer the district do about this material? 

Do not assign, recommend, or show (in the case of audiovisual material) this material to my student and provide an alternate assignment. 

Move the use of the material to a different grade level or subject area. 

Withdraw this material from all students.* 

*This request will trigger a full review by the Advisory Review Committee. 10. In its place, what material of equal value would you recommend for district use? 

____________________________ ____________ Signature of Complainant Date 

Revised December 2021

PROCEDURES FOR HANDLING CHALLENGED MATERIALS 

Media or learning resources deemed by some as objectionable, offensive, or inappropriate may be considered by others as having sound educational value or worth. Despite the careful selection of library or classroom resources and the qualifications of those involved in the selection process, objections to the chosen resources may occur. 

Any concerned School District resident or employee of the School District may request reconsideration of materials; however, the challenged material will not be removed from use while the School District’s reconsideration procedure occurs. 

Procedures for Handling Complaints 

In adherence to Board Policy 906, persons with a complaint about classroom or library print or digital resources should communicate their concerns directly with the classroom teacher or school librarian. The teacher or librarian will listen attentively to the concerns and attempt to resolve the issue. As part of the conversation, the school employee will explain the selection policy for books/materials, the selection criteria, the diversity of the collection with resources inclusive of many points of view, and the selection approval process. 

Persons requesting permission to examine books or materials may examine such materials in the library media center or the school office with the librarian, classroom teachers, and/or the principal by appointment, in a way so as not to disrupt the normal operations of the school. 

If the complaint is not resolved with the classroom teacher or the librarian, the procedures are as follows: 

1. A complaint about a book, resource, or other instructional material will be referred to the building principal. The building principal will then contact the complainant and the appropriate school staff to meet together as a group to discuss the concerns, again 

Revised November 2021

attempting to resolve the complaint through open dialogue. The principal and school staff will explain the philosophy and goals of the instructional program, why the material supports curricular standards and objectives, and the selection policy and procedure used to choose the material. 

2. If the complaint is not resolved at step one, the Citizen’s Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Material Form and a cover letter will be sent to the complainant with a request that he/she return the completed questionnaire to the building principal within ten business days. Once received, the principal will send a duplicate of the completed questionnaire to the appropriate school staff. 

3. Upon receipt of the completed questionnaire, the building principal will convene an ad hoc Advisory Review Committee consisting of: 

a. Any building teacher associated with the class(es) in which the challenged material was used 

b. An ELA teacher and/or Reading Specialist if the book is located in the school library 

c. The Professional Learning Liaison for the department involved 

d. A guidance counselor serving the building involved 

e. The librarian serving the building involved 

f. The building principal 

g. The Assistant Superintendent, who will serve as the chairperson and moderator of the committee. 

4. The Advisory Review Committee will take the following steps after receiving the challenge to the materials: 

a. Read, view, and/or listen to the material in its entirety. Through interlibrary loan or other means, a copy of the material in question will be provided to each member of the committee. 

b. Review Board Policies 108 and/or 109 to determine whether or not the material meets the district’s selection guidelines. 

c. Review any supplemental materials provided by the librarian or classroom teacher to offer context for the use of the material 

d. Survey general acceptance of the material by reading reviews and consulting recommended material lists (e.g. American Library Association, National Council of Teachers of English, Destiny, etc.). 

e. Review the curricular and instructional rationale for the inclusion of the material and determine the extent to which the material supports that rationale. 

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f. Request and review any additional information or material that might be relevant to the decision-making process, including the concerns of the complainant. g. Prepare a report containing the committee’s recommendations on disposition in the matter. 

5. A member of the committee will take minutes. 

6. The committee reserves the right to use outside expertise if necessary to help in its decision-making process. 

7. The entire review process and the Advisory Committee’s work is estimated to take four to six weeks. Depending on the length of the material, this process could exceed six weeks. The work in question will remain on library shelves or continue to be used in the classroom until a formal decision is made. 

8. The Assistant Superintendent, acting as a chairperson and moderator will listen to all discussions and committee input to determine the committee’s consensus concerning the material, and inform the complainant, in writing, of the committee’s evaluation and its decision regarding continued use. (Copies of this letter will be sent to all committee members and the Superintendent.) Either the material will be retained, moved to a different level, or removed. 

9. In the event that the Advisory Review Committee cannot reach a consensus regarding the challenged material and recommendations for future use, the Assistant Superintendent will make the decision and communicate the disposition to the complainant. 

10. The decision of the Advisory Review Committee as announced by the Assistant Superintendent will be considered final unless the complainant chooses to appeal to the Superintendent. The appeal process will involve the Superintendent’s review of the Citizen’s Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials and all information collected, reviewed, and discussed by the Advisory Review Committee. A final decision will be made by the Superintendent based on the presented information and communicated to the complainant in writing. 

Revised November 2021

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Book By Jesse Andrews

Review by Kate S. of Freedom Readers

I wish to address the controversy involving the Young Adult novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. I come to this story as a mother of two children, a boy and a girl, both now adults. One was, and still is, an avid reader, the other, not so much. I also approach the reading of this book as a retired English Language Arts teacher and public school librarian. My combined years of service in public schools are just over thirty. I have taught mostly in the grades kindergarten through ninth, but also substituted day-to-day in the high school grades for a few years during my self-determined stay-at-home-with-the-kids time, usually totalling less than a dozen days per year. 

I understand that this book has come in to the limelight for some of its language and alleged “pornography.” Let me first provide a definition of pornography from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary accessed April 16, 2022.

(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography)

Definition of pornography

1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement

2 : material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement

3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction

(example: the pornography of violence)     (Italics and bold facing mine.)

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a story spanning the senior year of Greg Gaines, his friend Earl, and Rachel. Rachel is a girl Greg knew in elementary school and on whom he faked a crush in order to make another girl jealous. Greg no longer “hangs around'' Rachel, but at the beginning of their senior year, Rachel has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, hence “the dying girl.”

Greg is socially awkward and has determined that he has found the best way to navigate adolescence/the teenage years is by living his social life on the periphery, not belonging to any particular social group (nerds, jocks, theater kids, goths, etc.). Greg is content to be able to interact only as necessary with all groups in an equally superficial manner. His only “close” friend, Earl, is also not a member of any social group at school but instead hides his personality and capabilities in classes for learning disabled students where he knows he can get by with no expectations for success from anyone. Earl’s home life is broken and chaotic with a drug-addicted mother, violent and law-breaking brothers, and no father figure. It seems as though Earl has chosen this “academic” route as a survival skill, a way to lessen the pressures in his life.

Greg and Earl bonded accidentally over movies in elementary school, in particular the movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God that Greg’s emotionally distant, professor father had in his collection. The boys entertain themselves by using Greg’s family’s video equipment to make their own movies, none of which are pornographic in any sense of the word. 

Greg and Earl choose to live their senior year in a seemingly disconnected parallel universe from the rest of high school society until it suits their particular purposes to interact. This “plan” is thrown out when Greg’s mother informs him that his childhood friend Rachel, with whom he no longer has much, if any, interaction, has been diagnosed with cancer. Greg’s mother guilts Greg into visiting Rachel “as a friend” during this difficult time. When Greg needs to inform Earl of his plan to visit Rachel (which he is only doing to please his mother), this is where the infamous conversation highlighted in school board meetings occurs. The boys use the crude term pussy in reference to a woman’s genitalia as Earl questions Greg about what he intends to do when he arrives at Rachel’s. While the conversation is crude and disgusting, it is not pornographic. There is no intention to depict or arouse sexual desire. The conversation is immature and gross. It is the author’s effort at the literary device known as characterization (the attempt to build a portrait of the protagonist and supporting characters in the story). Just as an author uses physical descriptions of characters to connect them to the readers’ imagination, the author can and should use how the characters respond to other characters and the plot line events to provide a fuller, richer look into the story’s characters so that the reader can connect to the type of person being depicted, understand the characters’ motivations, and possibly see the world through the eyes of someone similar to themselves or very different from themselves and their situations. This telephone conversation between Greg and Earl is not used to arouse sensual feelings in the reader. As a matter of fact, it is used to show their immaturity. This type of conversation between males (even adults who should know better) has often been excused as “locker room talk” and not to be taken seriously. Greg and Earl are not displayed as role models by this conversation, nor is their conversation shown as admirable. It has the opposite effect. The frequent use of the “f-bomb” and other not-intended-for-polite-conversation vocabulary is a means of showing to the intended reading audience (young adults), that these two boys are much like themselves or others they would know in their age group. The boys’ experiment with vocabulary and topics for shock value and male “bonding” is what today’s youth are much more likely to hear, or even use or be heard, than the sanitized verbiage of Frank and Joe Hardy. This does not excuse the use of the word pussy. It is to put it into context. If Greg and Earl were real people, the hope is that they would grow out of this juvenile behavior. 

More important than the vocabulary chosen by the author is the theme, the message intended in the telling of the story, and that revolves around Greg and his reactions and actions toward Rachel and his mother’s admonitions to “just to be a friend.” Greg (and Earl) have no idea what to do, how to act, what to say to another teen with, as it turns out, a fatal cancer diagnosis. To me, this theme of dealing with imminent death in a peer elevates the story and demonstrates its worth. How many of us, as adults who have lived at least twice as long as Greg and Earl, know this answer or would feel confident or comfortable in this situation? How many kids think they are the only ones who may not know what to do or say? There may be small comfort in knowing one is not the only one struggling with this, but it helps. Greg and Earl struggle, fail, succeed, fail again, don’t know if they have failed or succeeded, and in the end are left really not knowing how well or poorly they did. But they tried. I believe they have both grown—a little—at the end of the book. This is not a happy, everything works out in the end story. And that is another testament to its power.

Lastly, there are already procedures in place for parents to restrict their own children’s access to library materials. To use these procedures is that parent’s right. What is not acceptable is for a parent to restrict literature and resources for someone else’s child.