After two years of raising concerns over what they referred to as explicit content in school libraries, the Harford County chapter of Moms for Liberty says the school system’s new Library Materials Reconsideration Committee is a “step in the right direction.”
The newly formed committee will be tasked with evaluating library resources – primarily books – that parents and guardians of Harford school students have said should be removed from school libraries. Requests for reconsideration of materials will be accepted online.
“It is positive that they finally listened to the community that’s been coming for two years about this issue,” said Harford Moms for Liberty chapter Chair Suzie Scott. “We are going to do all that we can to get some of this stuff that is inappropriate in our school libraries out if we can.”
Jillian Lader, the system’s manager of communications, said Harford schools have not received any formal reconsideration requests within the past two years. However, Harford County Board of Education Vice President Melissa Han identified six books in county schools in September that she and other parents deemed inappropriate.
Lader said that despite the absence of formal requests, the committee was formed based on a recommendation from the American Library Association and to “streamline and standardize the process when library materials are up for reconsideration.”
The committee will recommend whether challenged materials should be removed or kept in the libraries. Material found by the committee to be inappropriate for schools will be presented to the system’s supervisor of innovation and learning. Within 30 days, Superintendent Sean Bulson will review and render a final decision on the material.
Harford schools has announced that applications for the committee are open. Scott confirmed that members of Moms for Liberty, a parental-rights group that has sought to remove books from school and public libraries that it considers inappropriate, have applied and are expecting to hear in June who has been appointed.
The 27-member committee will be split into three subcommittees of nine members. Each subcommittee — not specific to grade level, topic or medium — will consist of two parents of HCPS students, one community member, one teacher, one system administrator, one school librarian, two students grades eight through 12, and one HCPS curriculum specialist.
Scott pointed to the composition of the nine-member subcommittees as a potential issue.
“We will be there, but we might be outvoted because it is stacked with HCPS members,” Scott said. “So, we can go through this process that they have created, and we may not succeed but we are going to try anyway because children are so impressionable and aren’t developmentally mature enough to handle some of the content.”
Harford Schools has not responded to a request for comment on Scott’s concerns.
The creation of the reconsideration committee comes as challenges to books in public libraries and schools are rising across the country and in Maryland. In Carroll County, officials have been evaluating 58 books the system’s superintendent ordered to be removed from school libraries in September amid challenges.
Scott said Harford’s Moms for Liberty chapter does not have a list of books it plans to challenge, but that the group has started its own book committee to monitor materials in the school library for future reconsideration.
“The short answer is yes — Moms For Liberty is going to challenge books,” Scott said.
In response to the growing conversation around removing books from school libraries, Maryland lawmakers approved and Gov. Wes Moore signed the Freedom to Read Act, setting standards for content in libraries for the first time. The law prohibits school and public libraries from excluding materials solely because of the author’s origin, background or view, or for partisan, ideological or religious reasons.
Scott said she, along with Moms for Liberty, believes that schools should prioritize valuable educational material in libraries.
“There is only so much shelf space in a school library and [some schools] are getting rid of things like ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ so they can put in things about ‘Gender Queer’ and other stuff that isn’t appropriate,” Scott said. “This is about curating a library with appropriate materials for the population and in a children’s library, you wouldn’t want pornographic material.”
Applications for the Library Materials Reconsideration Committee are open to all Harford residents; the deadline to apply is Friday.
