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NCSD
The Nassau County School Board has finalized the district’s new policy on textbooks and instructional materials, including how parents and community members can formally object to materials being used in the classroom.
Parents and community members will have the chance to formally object to instructional materials such as books at the hearings held before the board approves them. After the initial approval, those with objections can fill out the written form available on the district’s website.
“We heard from community members in the past, when we first presented this for advertising,” Nassau County School District Superintendent Kathy Burns said. “In one portion it said ‘a parent,’ but now it says ‘a parent or a resident of the county.’ That is the correction that was made, and this is what we’ll be voting on tonight.”
The board ultimately voted to approve the change after further discussion on how parents might object to materials.
“When was the last time our instructional materials manual has been revised? Are we still using that document?” board member Curtis Gaus asked. “This is pretty explicit, the board rules. Will that eliminate the manual?”
Nassau County School District Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Mark Durham confirmed that the manual is still in effect, though it is updated regularly, especially with state legislative updates being made in the past year.
“The instructional materials that are not on the state-adopted text, that, to me, is the place where materials that would not be in line with our district’s policy would be,” Gaus said.
Durham said that is what the new policy concerns.
“We use tons of materials that aren’t state-adopted material,” he said. “Even the materials (the board adopts) are just the textbooks, the main source of material.”
Materials such as newspaper or journal articles and other supplementary material are not subject to board approval. These materials, however, can be objected to by parents, under the newly adopted board policy.
“For example,” Gaus said, “I know with films, typically classes send out a notice that these films will be viewed or portions of these films will be viewed during the year. Are teachers — particularly at the secondary level — going to be sending out to the (parents) ahead of a unit that they will be reading a pamphlet, selection or book?”
“That wouldn’t change,” Durham said. “That’s not something that we were doing already.”
“How would a parent know what is actually being taught in the class unless it actually goes home?” Gaus asked.
Durham referenced the Weekly Reader magazine that many students have access to through their schools.
“We don’t send that home beforehand for every parent to preview,” he said. “Now if a kid brings it home and there’s something objectionable in there, this is the process they use to object. But as far as getting preapproval for your kid to participate in every single activity that came up in a classroom, I think that would be something that would be totally unmanageable and would tie teachers’ hands to the point they would be paralyzed.”
Gaus said he understood and didn’t want to tie teachers’ hands.
“As we’re planning and preparing our materials for students to use in the classroom,” Burns said, “we are reviewing and monitoring and identifying, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to use this, we’re not going to use this.’ But basically, we are approving what we’re using.”
The district confirmed teachers typically include any books their classes will read in the syllabus sent home at the beginning of the year. As for any other material that might come up as the year goes along, Durham said he wasn’t sure the district would “want to put that requirement on (teachers) at all” to have to send home notifications for every single newspaper article, magazine, pamphlet and video shown.
“The state takes care of the books,” Gaus said. “And our adoption process takes care of the books and materials that are in the books and those types of things. What I’m asking is, ‘What are the safeguards?’ What’s a parent’s safeguard for the non-adopted instructional materials?”
Durham said the principals at each school, along with grade and subject area chairs, vet those other materials.
“(The schools) have their own internal vetting process that they do. They know those things can’t be presented,” he said. “But as far as every single thing that come in front of a student throughout the school year, getting that home to parents … we don’t want to tie (their) hands … We want to make the information as available as possible to the parents, but we also don’t want to tie the teachers’ creativity.”
Gaus reassured again that he does not want to make teachers’ job harder than it already is, but just wants to get ahead of any questions parents might have.
Board vice chair Gail Cook and Burns also confirmed that the books available to students via classroom libraries are vetted and subject to the same processes. Parents are also given the chance at the beginning of the year to decide what books students can have access to.
When asked about the process concerning Advanced Placement and dual credit courses (the materials for which are typically predetermined by an outside committee), Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Misty Mathis said this year has been a bit of a trial run, since this is the first year the new laws have been in effect. Parents were provided with lists of every teaching material used in the AP classes and given the option to withdraw their students.
“I didn’t hear of one student that needed to be withdrawn from their AP course,” she said.
hdorman@fbnewsleader.com
