School Board wants more transparency on book challenges

After a controversial decision by a Miami Lakes public school to bar elementary students from reading three books and the poem read at President Biden’s inauguration, the Miami-Dade School Board wants to require schools to alert board members and district staff when a complaint results in the reassignment or removal of a title.

In many districts, including Miami-Dade, when a book or title is challenged, only a schoollevel review committee is required to determine whether a book should remain on shelves. It does not require objections or decisions be known to district-level staff or board members.

The proposal, brought by board member Steve Gallon III, seeks to change that. The updates, according to Gallon, would improve transparency around certain decisions.

“As a board member, I was somewhat miffed to learn about an issue through the media that created a public firestorm and a national embarrassment and debacle,” Gallon said at a school board committee meeting Wednesday. “Are we still wading in the waters of ambiguity and allowing a Pandora’s Box to continue to open without us as a board taking some action regarding this issue?”

The proposal, which the board is expected to discuss at its monthly

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AS A BOARD MEMBER, I WAS SOMEWHAT MIFFED TO LEARN ABOUT AN ISSUE THROUGH THE MEDIA THAT CREATED A PUBLIC FIRESTORM AND A NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT AND DEBACLE.

board meeting Wednesday, comes after the school district faced national backlash following news of four titles being removed from elementary access and restricted to middle school students at Bob Graham Education Center, a K-8 school in Miami Lakes, after one parent complained.

One of the titles was “The Hill We Climb” by young Black poet Amanda Gorman, now 25, who recited the poem at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Jan. 20, 2021. Her poem celebrates the United States not as a perfect union, but as an unfinished nation that yearns for

Steve Gallon III, Miami-Dade School Board member

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