The instructional materials committee with the Perry School District continued its discussion from earlier this month on Wednesday night about a complaint of a book that is currently being discussed in a high school class.

The book in question is “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas. Committee Chair Linda Kaufman opened the meeting with a review of the board policy considering instructional materials. She said the first step was a meeting between the teacher and the building principal. In this particular case, Joel Baxter had concerns about his high school-age daughter reading the book in English class and the solution was that she was given an alternative book and an alternative environment where she could work alone on the unit.

Kaufman said if the complaint doesn’t get satisfaction, then they can fill out a form and submit it to the superintendent, who then calls for the instructional materials committee to reconsider the request. For the purpose of the meeting, Baxter claimed that his daughter’s teacher wasn’t grading her work from the alternative book and stated that her grade was changed from an “F” to a zero. The committee is made up of eight individuals, including three from the community, three district staff members and two students. 

After the committee reviewed the policies, as well as considered the reputable reviews and awards for the chosen book, Baxter was given time to address the committee. One of his main issues was that he felt the book wasn’t appropriate for its designated audience, as laid out in the policy. He outlined some of his other concerns.

“The book normalizes drug and alcohol use for high school aged kids. Disrespect towards police is very generalized in this. In time where police are already being targeted, we should not stereotype all cops as bad to our students. The foul language in the book. The f-word is used 88 times, the n-word is commonly used in the book, many times vulgar language is used when not appropriate.”  

Baxter recommended one of the three choices the committee can suggest to the superintendent, which was to take the book out of the classroom curriculum and have it available at the library for students to check out on their own.

Police Chief Eric Vaughn was also invited to speak on Baxter’s request about how police were viewed in the book. While Vaughn said he didn’t like parts of the book and how the police were portrayed, he thought that overall the book brought out themes about race and different cultures, but he agreed with a committee member that the book was more about anti police brutality and not anti police overall. 

Then the teachers who are responsible for selecting the book and using it as part of their curriculum were given a chance to explain their unit and make comments. Language Arts Instructor Joy Berg talked about one of the main reasons they originally chose this book was from an event in 2018 when they got to meet the author of “The Hate U Give.”

“And we found that she was just a very great young author that we both thought could connect with our students and represent something that we want to show in our classroom and library, the novels that we teach. Not by the typical author but by a young, female, minority author which we felt could be more representative of some of our students.”  

Berg added they also wanted a book that would engage students and reading a novel would be fun and entertaining for them. Baldwin said they also created an environment that allowed students to express their own opinions during discussion times and that her and Berg reframed from sharing their own thoughts because it was supposed to be student driven. 

Following the meeting, Kaufman said they will hold their third meeting on Tuesday, October 4th at 4:15pm in the Brady Library. She pointed out the meeting will start with public comments before the committee deliberates and then will give their recommendation to the superintendent who can then relay that to the School Board.