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A Georgia school board member cut off a mother reading sexually explicit content from a book available to high school students in the district, saying the passage was “inappropriate” for any children to potentially hear.
“Excuse me, we have children at home,” Cherokee County school board member identified as Patsy Jordan told the angry mother after she read a sexually-charged passage from the book “Homegoing.” The school board member pointed out that the meeting was being livestreamed and said reading the passage was “inappropriate.”
“Don’t you find the irony in that?” the parent responded. “You’re exactly saying exactly what I’m telling you! You’re giving it to our children! I would never give this to my children!”
OKLAHOMA BILL WOULD LET PARENTS REMOVE SEXUALLY EXPLICIT BOOKS FROM SCHOOL LIBRARIES
Video of the exchange has since received hundreds of thousands of views on social media.
The parent at the meeting recounted to the board that the process of removing books from school libraries is lengthy. She said the current wait time for a review of a book reaches to November of this year, and books under review remain available to students until the review is complete.
“All this happened under your watch,” the parent told the board. “Maybe if you spent more time reading these books instead of calculating the statistical demographics of those submitting the books, you wouldn’t grooming our children. You’re saying that we’re embarrassing you? Well, you’re embarrassing us and our kids. It’s not OK! You are supposed to be giving them a safe space in school. These books? If I can’t email them to you, if I can’t say them, they shouldn’t be in the school!”
The board then told the mother her time was up.
Cherokee County Board of Education Front row, from left, Kelly Poole, Kyla Cromer and Patsy Jordan. Back row, from left, Clark Menard, John Harmon, Mike Chapman, Robert Rechsteiner and Superintendent Dr. Brian V. Hightower.
(Cherokee County Board of Education)
A spokesperson for the Cherokee County School District told Fox News Digital Thursday morning that school board members stopped the parent “because she was reading a high school-level book, and children younger than high school age have access to watch the meeting livestream and access to watch the video when it was posted the next day on the CCSD website.”
The spokesperson added that the concerned parent does not have students at the high school level within the school district and “had been repeatedly advised” she could file a challenge to remove the book, but has not done so. The book is only available to high school-aged students in the district, and parents “have the right to restrict their child from checking out books from media centers.”
The book “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi is described as an “extraordinary novel” that “illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation,” according to Barnes & Noble.
Interior of classroom in elementary school. Row of empty desks are in illuminated room.
(iStock)
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The unidentified mother at the meeting told PJ Media that parents have been bringing explicit books to the attention of the school board since about November of last year. The mother circled back with other concerned parents in January, only to find the books in question were still available to students. Now, parents are reviewing a list of books available to students that they find inappropriate, including “The Glass Castle,” PJ Media reported.
