Welcome to morganton.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

Morganton.com - Morganton - The News Herald

HomeNewsEntertainmentSportsLifestylesOpinionCommunityWeather Online Tools Jobs | Real Estate | Shopping | Classified

School board to hear proposed book policy

Arrick Gordon

news@morganton.com

Published: November 16, 2008

Morganton - A proposed policy on "Parental Inspection of and Objection/Challenge to Classroom Instructional Materials" will be presented Monday for its first reading by the Burke County Board of Education.
Several parents demanded a new policy when they spoke at October's board meeting. During the meeting's public-comments period, they voiced concerns about some of the literature being assigned to middle and high school students.
Some of the parents want a policy that requires teachers to notify parents about what their children will read for classes. Some demanded a policy that will afford parents the opportunity to request alternate reading assignments for their children.
Since the meeting, the parent's demands have not gone unnoticed in the public eye. According to blog reports on Facebook, more than 500 current and former Burke County students are rallying to support teacher choices. Both on the Web and in letters on The News Herald's Opinion page, some say the reading assignments and education they received in Burke County schools gave them good preparation for the challenges of college and adult life in general. Many oppose any restrictions on the teachers' choices of reaading materials.
Many people say on Facebook that they plan to attend tonight's meeting to show their support for teacher choices and to voice their objections to censorship in the schools.
The board meeting will begin at 6 p.m. today in the Parker Road administration building.
The proposed new policy requires that parents receive a copy of all classroom reading assignments, according to Superintendent David Burleson. If a parent finds any of the books to be inappropriate, the policy says the parent may meet with the teacher "one on one" to personally discuss an alternate reading assignment for his or her child.
Some of the books challenged at the last school board meeting are "Beloved" and "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger and "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.
"The Kite Runner" is at the heart of a long-running much-debated controversy about teachers' selections of reading materials in the Burke County schools. Back in February, Vicki Dobson addressed the school board regarding "The Kite Runner" and she eventually filed an official complaint about the use of the book.
Under an existing board policy, the school district's Media and Technology Committee – made up of teachers, parents, students and community leaders – reviewed the book and voted not to restrict teachers' use of "The Kite Runner."
Dobson subsequently dropped her complaint.