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A young adult novel that was the subject of a parent’s series of complaints and ultimate request for its removal from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District is set to remain on shelves and continue to be an option for curriculum in the district ‘s high schools following the board’s decision on the request this week.
The board voted 4-1 late Tuesday evening to uphold district staff and administration’s approval of the Sherman Alexie novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” after discussing an appeal of that decision by a district parent at that evening’s meeting, with first-term Area 1 trustee Jesse vanZee casting the dissenting vote.
The subject came to the board following a series of complaints from Julia Laffon, a parent who said she was concerned about her ninth-grade student reading the book for an English class. District staff and administration proceeded to evaluate the material’s appropriateness and consider Laffon’s complaints before affirming the 2016 decision by the district to include the book as supplementary material for English classes in the district’s high schools.
The board’s vote was on whether or not the administrative decision was in alignment with district policies on book acquisition and curriculum, with no decision’s on changes to policy on the agenda that night.
The debate that evening was close to one year after a spirited board meeting in 2023 that saw a lengthy discussion and numerous public comments on an informational-only presentation on the district’s book acquisition and complaint policies.
While last year’s meeting garnered significant attention and coverage from a range of media outlets, the debate has been ongoing in the non-agendized public comment portion of board meetings before and since. The latest meeting was no exception, with several public comments on the subject of school curriculum despite conversation on the book removal request being reserved for that agenda item later in the evening.
Ogie Strogatz, co-president of the Alamo-Danville-Walnut Creek branch of the American Association of University Women, was among the speakers in the non-agendized public comment period supporting existing text acquisition and complaint policies at the district.
“Our branch is committed to attending the district board meetings to express our unwavering support for the excellent public education to which SRVUSD is devoted,” Strogatz said. “We oppose book-banning because it reflects the imposition of a narrowly defined point of view upon the community at large. That approach undermines democracy.”
Critics of existing policy and materials, including longtime board meeting attendees Mike Arata and Lisa Disbrow, continued their complaints about the district’s curriculum and library offerings along with several new faces, reading graphic quotes from material available at the district and decrying what they called pornography in school libraries.
“‘This Book is Gay’ by Juno Dawson, a transgender person, is very interesting,” Disbrow said. “It has a section on how sex apps work. Is that even any of your business, to offer this material to children? How does that relate to the quality of their learning and being prepared for career and college?”
While a majority of the criticism of school materials has been and continues to be centered on LGBTQIA content, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” has been the center of a range of controversy for other reasons, including violence and its use of a racial slur, plus sexual harassment allegations against its author.
Laffon said that in her complaints to district administration about the book that her concerns specifically centered on its depictions of masturbation and the use of pornography, additionally alleging that the book had been assigned for the class without her knowledge or consent.Â
“We rapidly noticed that our son was disturbed by this book’s content, calling it in his words ‘weird’ and writing sexually charged comments in his notebook, which prompted us to look further into this book,” Laffon said. “We were shocked to find that ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ was full of racialized language and disturbing sexual content that in our opinion has no place in a ninth grade classroom.”
She continued, “The book includes a description of the protagonist fulfilling his sexual desires by masturbating with the use of pornography. He praises the act, normalizes it, blasphemes, degrades women and motherhood in the passage attached to my complaint.”
Debra Petish, executive director of curriculum and instruction, responded to Laffon’s statements at that night’s meeting and outlined the process by which her office had responded to Laffon’s complaints about the book and ultimately determined it was appropriate for students in ninth grade and up. Petish noted that the teacher of Laffon’s son’s class had offered to let him read a different book after Laffon’s complaints emerged, but Laffon said that “the damage was done” following her son’s initial exposure to the book.
“In evaluating the age-appropriateness of ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ we’ve referenced assessments from several agencies in conjunction with the professional judgment and standards of the teachers and teacher librarians,” Petish said. “These evaluations suggest the book is suitable for high school students.”
“We greatly respect the concerns of the parents, and feel that the teacher addressed these concerns appropriately,” Petish said. “The subject in question constitutes only a minor portion of the book and it does not represent its overall quality and value. The majority of the book offers significant ed and literary merit. Consequently, we request the board to consider the educational value of this novel, the judgment and expertise of our teachers and teacher librarians, and the rigorous selection process it underwent, all of which support its continued inclusion in our curriculum.”
vanZee sought to expand the discussion of Laffon’s complaint ahead of the board’s vote on the item that evening, pointing to the prominence and quantity of concerns raised about curriculum and material in the district since he took office at the start of 2023, replacing retired trustee Ken Mintz in a close race that saw him with less than 250 more votes than second-place opponent Michelle Petersen.
“I want to unpack this because as a board member who’s joined this board a little bit over a year ago I feel like topics like this take about half of my bandwidth as a board member, and I’m sure that staff feels the same way, I’m sure teachers feel the same way, I’m sure certain parents feel the same way,” vanZee said.
vanZee asked both Petish and Laffon clarifying questions about Laffon’s effort to engage with her child’s teacher about the curriculum in use and the complaint process she had gone through ahead of the appeal to the board, but the conversation was cut short by an interjection from SRVUSD Superintendent John Malloy, who warned that the topic was veering off into what could be considered a personnel matter that wasn’t suitable for discussion at a public meeting.
“We are now through the questioning moving into what could now be considered a personnel discussion,” Malloy said. “The purpose of tonight’s discussion is to be sure that as a board that we have followed the policy. This is not a hearing where – there’s not a teacher here, we would never do this in public anyway, so questions cannot go into a personnel matter about what may have happened with a teacher and a parent. This is about a policy – did we follow the policy or did we not. All of the other conversations could be very valid and important, but not at a public session at a board meeting.”
vanZee and Laffon both agreed with Malloy’s assessment and request, with the former seeking to discuss the policies and procedures in place that had led to the book’s inclusion as a supplementary curriculum option and Laffon’s subsequent complaints and appeal. However, Malloy and other trustees emphasized that the topic of that agenda item was a question of whether or not the district’s administration had followed policy or not, with any further discussions on changing policy needing to come to a future meeting.
“I think for this particular item, I would not remove this for access to everyone, but we might need a workshop to discuss our policy a little bit,” Area 4 trustee Susanna Ordway said.
Area 5 trustee Rachel Hurd moved to deny Laffon’s appeal to remove the book, which was seconded by Area 2 trustee Shelley Clark and voted in favor of by the remaining trustees with the exception of vanZee. Hurd added that she would also like to request that “somewhere to the docket of coming issues that we discuss this idea of how can we better address transparency,” as part of her motion.
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Apparently the book is OK since “The subject in question constitutes only a minor portion of the book” … that included “depictions of masturbation and the use of pornography” for Ninth Graders in the Public School.
Parents should have alternatives to the “education” that the Public schools are now offering. The same funding and facility costs that we pay for now should be used in the form of school vouchers and facilities that would be alternatives to our current public schools.
The article also attempts to minimize one of the board members who attempted to have a deeper discussion about the book. Note that this member was in a close election but after the fact it turned out that the election loser had misrepresented her own background. This was later documented on local news sites… Perhaps the author of this opinion article should stick to facts about the issue.
Thank you Ms. Lyman for your reporting on this issue. Book banning is a hot topic in our national culture for the last 10 years. I am thankful that our school board has taken a professional and responsible approach that respects as much as possible all of our community’s views. This particular book in question has been “controversial” since it was published. I invite my neighbors to Google it and read the history. In many cases the concerns were raised by folks who had not read the book. Indeed, several school boards across the country found after reading the book that, in context, the book is appropriate for high school level. Personally, I am thankful that professional educators across the country are taking this subject seriously. Again, thank you to this publication for keeping us informed.