Committees to decide whether these titles stay in school libraries. Here’s how you can watch

Community members can watch review committees decide whether “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Speak” and “The Kite Runner” will be allowed in Beaufort County school libraries on Thursday.

These will be the first four decisions on the 97 books removed from school libraries in October. Two more titles for review were announced Wednesday and more will be announced in the coming weeks, according to District Spokesperson Candace Bruder.

The committees will meet at Bluffton Elementary school at 5:45 p.m.

“They can just come to the front door,” Bruder said. “We’ll have greeters there and we’ll walk them to the spot.”

Each of the four review committees will take place simultaneously in the cafeteria and they won’t be streamed or recorded. There will be no public comment. Attendees will solely be able to listen and observe the process from their designated seats.

The meetings fall exactly two weeks after the committees first met Nov. 17 to ensure understanding of the review process. Since then committee members were tasked with reading their assigned book in full.

The first four books were selected because they are used in some advanced placement courses, according to Bruder.

During the meetings they will discuss their findings using the “Reconsideration Committee Checklist.” Then they will vote on whether the title should be allowed in Beaufort County schools.

If they vote “no,” the title will remain off shelves. If they vote “yes,” all copies will be removed from storage at the district office and placed back in school classrooms and libraries.

Decisions will stand for at least five years after the books original challenge date, according to District policy. Then, books can be reconsidered either way.

Superintendent Frank Rodriguez appointed the review committees, which consist of seven members: a community member, a district-level administrator, a parent, a school administrator, a member of a School Improvement Council within the district/school, a school librarian and a teacher.

“The value of the book is to be examined as a whole, considering the impact of an entire work, transcending individual words, phrases, and incidents,” a district press release said of the committees earlier this month.