CVUSD approves controversial policy

A Conejo Valley Unified School District Board of Education meeting was held Tuesday, Nov. 14 to vote on a proposition regarding the restriction of mature content taught in high school classes.

The new policy requires all teachers to notify parents when certain texts assigned to the class contain adult content, then parents approve their child’s reading of the text via a signature on the syllabus beginning January 2018.

The proposal came after the establishment of a committee which was created to review the previous policy regarding the approval of literature containing mature content. The committee, comprising teachers and administrators, proposed a new policy which was, before the vote, edited and changed by board clerk Sandee Everett. Some committee members were unhappy with the changes.

The proposition requires teachers to include all books they intend to use in the classroom on the syllabus that California Department of Education deems as “materials [that don’t] align with or are in conflict with personal sensibilities and/or values” with an asterisk and warning. Teachers are required to give further warning for graphic content to parents by the high school’s Back to School night.

Teachers must also provide an alternative assignment for students whose parents do not feel comfortable with their child studying the mature content within the text. With the new proposal, the title “mature content” is extended to “any piece of literature or nonfiction work [that] is potentially objectionable to someone for some reason.”

The policy also proposed the creation of a committee of parents and other community members that would be able to review potential curriculum before its classroom integration.

The board voted 3-1 in favor of the proposition, with board president Mike Dunn, board vice president John Anderson and Everett voting in favor of the bill, and board member Betsy Connolly voting against the bill. Board member Pat Phelps was absent for the vote.

The policy proposed by Everett was one unto her own and separate of that of the committee. It drew concern from students, teachers, parents and community members. Around 130 of these individuals attended the board meeting to protest the bill. Part of the concern derives from a lack of communication between the teachers and those who created the policy, causing upset from both the student body and teaching community.

Thus far, ten books out of a set of 71 in the district’s core curriculum are to receive the asterisk and warning on the syllabus, according to the board’s majority order. Among these are “The Catcher in the Rye,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “The Kite Runner.”

Students, parents and concerned teachers on both sides gave their opinions regarding the issue at the meeting, with about 75 speakers each delivering a roughly two-minute speech.

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A number of parents supported the policy, and felt it necessary in order for them to be more engaged in their student’s education.

“I have two boys, 12 and 15, and you better believe I’m interested in what they’re exposed to. My job is to train my sons. It is our parental right to be informed and to choose what is being taught in classrooms. It is our fundamental right as a parent to have a say in their developing lives,” parent Jeanette said.

Some were opposed to the policy — particularly, students who felt as though the bill would hinder their learning experience. Westlake High School senior Ritika Iyer attended the meeting with fellow students who carried neon posters emblazoned with slogans such as “2017? More like 1984,” and “Don’t Kill the Mockingbird.”

“These are books that I love and we’re here to keep them. This policy would affect us next semester,” Iyer said.

The Oak Park High School student body reflects this same sentiment.

“I think this is extremely alarming. Some parents in Oak Park may support this and it’s really scary. Could you imagine just not reading ‘To Kill A Mockingbird?'” Oak Park High School senior and ASB member Joseph Goeken said.

Some CVUSD teachers felt that the bill was an attack on their curriculum as a whole and vocalized this during the meeting.

“Our mission is education, and so we teach these classic books to students. It’s heartbreaking when we have parents who try to push our classics out of the curriculum,” Westlake High School English department chair Lora Novak said. “It’s very difficult to protect our students from this, and we’re so grateful that they find value in reading and want to protect us. They already see the messages of ‘1984’ at work here.”

Roland Herberg, an English teacher at Oak Park High School, felt the desire of parents to be more involved in their children’s’ educational lives as valid, however he also recognized that the policy takes away from a student’s learning experience and discredits teachers as well.

“My daughter had to read ‘Shabanu’ in the seventh grade. I felt very strongly that it was inappropriate, but I let the teacher make the decision ultimately because the teacher is a professional and has read the book,” Herberg said. “We’re seeing that the professional expertise of the teacher is being discounted and nullified by individuals who haven’t actually read the books. It’s very rare that a teacher entirely agrees with some of the beliefs and values expressed in these works of literature. But a teacher teaches them anyway, because it’s apart of developing education and self-cultivation.”

In addition to garnering outrage from students and teachers, the policy also received attention from multiple organizations, including the National Council of Teacher of English, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

In a joint letter to the CVUSD Board of Education, the NCTE and NCAC wrote, “As the [Department of Education] notes ‘any piece of literature or nonfiction is potentially objectionable to someone for some reason.’ Indeed, every community is home to differences of opinion: for each individual who objects to a particular book, there will be others who favor it. It is thus incumbent on school officials to recognize the rights of students whose parents do not object to these books.”