By Richard Geier
Parents have the right to provide input as to what public schools teach their children. They have the right to determine what their minor children are allowed to check out of their school library.
Beaufort County School District students are not forced to read a book that their parents do not want them to read. If a teacher assigns a book for their child to read for a class and a parent objects to the book, they can work with their child’s teacher and/or administrator to select a different book for their child that still meets the state standard being taught for the class.
Parents have the right to send their child’s teacher, librarian, and/or school administrator the title and author of any single book in the school library that their child cannot check out. Parents can even send an entire list of books and authors that their child cannot check out. In fact, parents can inform the school that their child is forbidden to check out any books in the school library without their consent.
Parents do not have the right to determine what books other parents’ children may check out of the school library. If parents are concerned that school library books forbidden for their children may be passed on through other students in the school, they have a number of choices.
They can closely supervise their children’s choice of friends. They can inform their children that they are not allowed to get any books from their classmates. They can closely check on every book their child brings home. If these choices are insufficient in the parents’ minds to protect their children from having access to books they object to, they have the choice to send their children to another school.
Beaufort County has a school choice option that every parent is allowed to take. They can choose a different district school where they believe that their children will not be influenced by other children to read books that they as parents have determined to be forbidden. They also have the choice to apply to charter schools that may or may not have books they deem as objectionable.
Although charter schools are tuition free, parents also have the freedom to enroll their children in a private school, a school whose library contents may meet their standards, knowing they will have to either pay tuition or look into scholarship options. Lastly, parents can elect to homeschool their children.
In my opinion “book accessibility” is about freedom of choice. Parents have the freedom to choose one of many options to ensure their children younger than 18 years old are not exposed to content they find objectionable, but they should not have the freedom to eliminate other parents’ freedom to allow their children access to books. Parents have the freedom to allow their children to read and be exposed to controversial, challenging, lurid, and even uncomfortable topics in books so that they may be guided by a parent, loved one, or trusted teacher to cope with and understand the subject matter as it relates to the world we live in.
Richard Geier is the Beaufort County Board of Education Member representing District 4.
