Elkhorn Schools superintendent 'shocked' at request to remove 444 books from school libraries

At a parent's request, more than 400 books were temporarily removed from the Elkhorn Area School District's middle and high school libraries, although the "majority" have since been returned to shelves after a review.

In a Dec. 5 email to parents, Elkhorn Schools superintendent Jason Tadlock said that a parent on Nov. 30 had challenged 163 books at the middle school and 281 books at the high school. The books were to be temporarily removed from circulation, in accordance with district policy, while they were being reviewed.

In his email, Tadlock included a list of the challenged books, which include titles such as "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky.

Tadlock said in an email to a reporter Dec. 13 that "no books have been 'banned'" nor did he anticipate "banning" of any books, but could envision several scenarios that would limit access to books, including moving books out of the middle school entirely, limiting books to certain grades and/or requiring parent permission to check out certain titles.

The majority of the books challenged were quickly reviewed, approved for continued use and returned to circulation," Tadlock said. "Once both principals complete their review, I will share their decisions with the community," he added.

Tadlock was stunned by the number of books challenged.

"I've never seen a challenge of 444, so that was shocking, to be frank. Extremely shocking. I did anticipate there would be some sort of challenge at some point. We heard rumblings and rumors of that and had had conversations with people," Tadlock said in a phone interview.

More: These 43 books have been banned from school libraries in Wisconsin in 2023

He said that before the recent challenge of the 444 books, the district had only had two books challenged during his 11 years in the district: "Everybody Sees the Ants" by A.S. King and "Burn Baby Burn" by Meg Medina.

After review, those two books were moved from the middle school to the high school, "as that correlated with their recommended age level based on the content," Tadlock said in his email to a reporter.

What does the Elkhorn Area School District policy say about banning books?

Under the district's policy, the principal of the school where books are challenged is the first person to review a challenge. They are directed to use Common Sense Media, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com in their reviews.

While the books are being reviewed, the books are temporarily withdrawn from circulation. After review, the principal may "stipulate continued use, discontinued use, or restricted use of the materials involved, which use shall be effective immediately," the policy says.

From there, challenges of a principal's decision can be made to a committee consisting of the district's superintendent, a library media specialist of the assigned grade level and the district's director of instruction. The school board would review any appeals made of that committee's decision, the district's policy says.

The policy says special consideration is given to areas concerning "material on religious subjects," "political ideologies which exert strong influence on government, education, and other phases of our society" and "materials which include profanity, violence or frank treatment of sex." The policy was adopted in 1989 and updated in 1999 and 2021.

District's book policy is now under review

Tadlock said the Elkhorn School Board's policy committee will meet in January to review the policy.

"The most basic recommendation will be that books won't be pulled from circulation when challenged, that if they are pulled or modified that it would be after the review is done so that there is not a disruption to the learning or the access to the materials unnecessarily," Tadlock said of his suggestions to the board regarding the policy.

Tadlock said reviewing books is difficult because of a lack of consistent ratings system like what is used for movies.

"I think the biggest help for educators — I would love to see a coherent or something around providing a ratings system for books that was uniform and made our jobs a lot easier, to be honest. Again, not to restrict them, because we want our kids to have access to all the books, but just to provide the access in a format and a way that's agreeable to all parties concerned," Tadlock said.

Other districts have also had books challenged

Elkhorn is not the only district in the state, or even the suburban Milwaukee area, to remove books.

The Menomonee Falls School District recently removed 33 books from Menomonee Falls High School, saying the books violated the district's policy on sexually explicit content and profanity.

The Howard-Suamico School District's removal of over 30 books from its school libraries since 2019 led the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday to file a records request with the district. That same day, the ACLU also filed records requests with the Kenosha Unified, Menomonee Falls, Elmbrook, Elkhorn and Waukesha school districts.

The Elkhorn Area School district is a 4K-grade 12 district in Walworth County. Its unaudited 2023-24 school year enrollment is 3,468.

Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Parent challenged 444 books in Elkhorn middle, high school libraries