Policy not followed in 'Ultima' dispute

E-Mail

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

The immediate question before the Newman school board is whether "Bless Me, Ultima" should remain on the reading list for sophomores in honors English at Orestimba High School. That's on Monday's agenda.

But the board needs to consider at least two other questions that will affect 1) its ability to handle challenged books in the future and 2) morale within the district:

Did the administration follow the current board policy in handling this challenge? No.

Is the policy, as written, adequate to resolve future challenges? Maybe, if followed.

Book challenges are fairly common, but Newman's controversy has festered needlessly. At this week's meeting the school board chairman criticized teachers for not following protocol, but in fact, the administration had already veered away from procedure.

Issue No. 1, the book: "Bless Me, Ultima" is the story of a young Latino boy torn between beliefs and dreams of his parents. It contains profanity, a few sexual scenes and several killings. The strongest theme is the tension between Catholicism and traditional healers. Despite objections to the contention, the book remains on many reading lists because it wrestles with the kinds of life choices that teens and young adults face. Also noteworthy: "Bless Me, Ultima" is the novel assigned for the U.S. Academic Decathlon this year. If Orestimba High had fielded a team, students would have had to read the book or stand no chance in the competition.

Issue No. 2, the policy: Newman's policy on "complaints concerning instructional materials" begins with giving parents the right to request an alternative assignment for their child. That was followed. The next step prescribes that a review committee will be formed, "composed of the principal and five or more staff members selected by the superintendent or designee from relevant administrative and instructional areas." The review committee included but was not chaired by the Orestimba principal. Another Newman administrator and two out-of-district administrators made up the rest of the committee, two short of the prescribed number. No Orestimba English teachers were included.

That committee recommended that the book not be removed and suggested that students and parents be provided notes on all required reading, with explanations for the selections and warnings about explicit language or sexual content. All are reasonable recommendations.

Under the policy, the committee's findings should go to the superintendent for a decision, with an option of the matter going to the school board for a final decision.

Instead, Superintendent Rick Fauss put together another committee not made up as prescribed. Its recommendation, somewhat confusing, was that "a different literary selection be used with sophomores, and if no suitable alternative to this book is available for the Latin American and-or 'coming-of-age' literature," the book should be used for older students, with ample parent inspection notice and during the school year rather than as a summer reading assignment.

The superintendent subsequently removed "Bless Me, Ultima" as a sophomore assignment. He insists he did not ban the book because it is still available in the school library, where, to no one's surprise, it is proving remarkably popular. He's now calling his decision a "moratorium" on the book.

The board's policy, adopted in 2005, contains a weakness in that it gives "the complainant" the option of appealing the superintendent's decision to the board but makes no reference to an appeal from anyone else, such as teachers. Of course, their input should have been considered earlier but wasn't.

Public comment: The board held a special meeting this week on the book, then immediately adjourned into closed session for an hour and 15 minutes after interpreting a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union, urging that the book be put back in the curriculum, as potential litigation. Then after hearing from about nine people, the chairman announced that it was board policy to limit public input to 20 minutes.

It's appropriate to have a three-minute rule for each speaker, but it doesn't make sense to limit the total time when a meeting is called for one purpose.

Newman's trustees clearly are uncomfortable over this controversy, but that comes with serving in elected office. To their credit, the trustees all have copies of the book and presumably have read it. We also assume they'll wait until hearing from the teachers who chose and use this book before making up their minds.

Parents should -- and do -- have the right to object to instructional material and have alternatives provided. But no district should eliminate a book from the curriculum without following a thoughtful policy.