VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It’s a policy change that sparked heated debate at the Virginia Beach School Board’s Tuesday night meeting.
An amendment narrowly passed to create a committee to address “sexually explicit content” in school libraries.
Before school board members voted, parents and educators took to the podium for roughly two hours to voice their opinions.
“Isn’t it better for us to actually spend time teaching our students? Again, we already have a process in place for this defined regulation, so a committee is not necessary," said one Virginia Beach City Public Schools library media specialist.
“Mr. Culpepper’s amendment should be unanimously passed because it’s amazing to me that there’s professional resistance to removing a lot of this material from school libraries," said another speaker.
According to the school board agenda, the policy requires the superintendent to form the committee consisting of senior staff and at least four library media specialists.
The agenda says the committee will work to keep books with sexually explicit content out of elementary schools. The committee will also "identify incoming library materials for secondary school libraries that contain sexually explicit content." Any books with sexually explicit content will be listed on the school division website.
“We just don’t want these same materials in our schools where they could potentially harm the innocence and minds of our school-aged children," one speaker said.
“Tonight’s proposal to once again create a list of inappropriate books, or as I like to call it the naughty list, is yet another proposal to ban books that diverge from one person’s view on what is acceptable for all students," argued another speaker.
The issue divided school board members as well, but the policy ultimately passed in a six to four vote.
School Board Chair Kim Melnyk along with school board members Beverly Anderson, Trenace Riggs and Jessica Owens voted no to the policy change.