View the public comments and noteworthy statements from the 10/20/2022 D158 School Board Meeting below.
1:09 – Mother discusses availability of a book in the HHS library that instructs minors how to meet strangers for sex with online apps. She asks how book selection takes place. Dr. Rowe responded that the district got the book because a student requested it.
She asks if the district will be providing any other books on topics if students request them – bestiality, orgies, Playboy? She says she feels a bit duped by the school district, naively believing there were guidelines in place that were more selective than a public library, especially with the district’s push for the Smart Social program to teach students to use the internet safely — which this particular book contradicts.
1:14 – Father discusses the Voice’s recent articles that students are having issues with the new math curriculum and VPN student accessibility able to bypass the school’s content filters.
1:16 – Mother speaks about ongoing, serious issues with the district’s LIGHT Program, which provides transition services for students with special needs aged 18-21. She gives detailed, in-depth information on how these students’ needs are not being met, despite the district receiving more funding for special-needs students than others.
1:24 – Mother reads passages from an HHS library book instructing minors how to use sex apps and provides photocopies of these pages to the board, again asking why the district filters internet content and encourages use of Smart Social responsible behavior online while simultaneously putting this book on a special display for students.
On behalf of the Parent Union and many other parents, she requests that the district adopt a simple policy:pornographic and sexually explicit content should not be permitted in the classroom and the school library. She reiterates that no one is asking for a book ban, but a common-sense age-appropriate restriction which is supported by 79% of the public.
1:28 – Mother inquires about the sex offender incident at Leggee Elementary where a known, registered predator was sitting in his car in the school’s parking lot at the time children were being released from school. She demands to know why parents were not notified of this incident.
1:31 – Mother thanks the Buddies club for their Spooky Buddies Halloween event and is dismayed that yet another event for special-needs students was left off the district’s RAD calendar, which is supposed to promote diversity.
She also discusses issues with Chromebook content filtering and the idea that some of the sexually-explicit books in the school libraries may promote or encourage human trafficking – as again, they instruct minors on how to use apps for anonymous sex.
2:11 – Dr. Rowe responds to some of the public comments, stating of the Leggee sex offender incident: “The story is not accurate and I think that we need to clear that up… misinformation.” … “This person was not lurking at Leggee in person — the person was in a vehicle.”
“We elected not to communicate it because I didn’t believe it needed to be communicated that there was no issue. The person was in the car rider line, was identified by a School employee, the proper authorities were notified and it was handled. There was no, um, underhanded activity occurring other than the violation of of the registry. So the truth is out. I just wanted you to be aware aware of that hopefully clear up some of the misinformation.”
2:13 – Dr. Rowe addresses the library book issues: “The book is in our library. I don’t believe that the school board should go down the road of removing books that are in a library. It is a clear violation of a Supreme Court decision that was made in 1982 – Islands Free School District versus Pico. I don’t – I just I don’t recommend we go down that path. That’s why we focus on our internal processes to ensure that things were tight and that we were following policies that we were following…”
He adds that books are recommended by the American Library association and Lincoln’s List and that the librarian considers the appropriateness for the age group “and is it worthy of being in the library.”