Idaho school district restricts books for students, requires parent permission

At least one Idaho school district has restricted books for its students in anticipation of a legislative bill that would remove certain books from school libraries.

Kuna School District spokesperson Allison Westfall told the Idaho Statesman in an email Wednesday that the district has placed several books on its “behind the shelf” policy, which means that students need parental permission to check out a book on restricted status.

The list of 25 books came from the Idaho Association of School Administrators, which shared a legislative update to Region Three superintendents, Westfall said.

Metadata on the spreadsheet sent out to school administrators, which was reviewed by the Statesman, showed the list was created by Stephanie Gifford, a Bonneville County woman who’s described herself as a “curriculum and literary analyst for Family Watch International,” the Statesman previously reported. Family Watch International is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center that describes homosexuality as a mental disorder.

Many of the books on the list contain sexual content or stories about the LGBTQ community. “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe, “Rainbow Boys,” by Alex Sanchez and “This Book Is Gay,” by Juno Dawson — are among the Idaho list and also appear in America’s Index for Banned Books.

Despite those restrictions, Westfall said diversity remains important to the district.

“We want to make sure our materials represent the diverse students we serve,” she said. “Moving them to another area allows the works to remain available with parent permission while also recognizing that this topic can be controversial to some families. Our policy and practice is for parents to give permission for controversial items.”

House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, told the Statesman by phone that he’s unaware of a list of books that would be banned by the Legislature, and hasn’t encountered a bill that would ban books by name.

On Monday, Rep. Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, introduced a bill that would open schools and public libraries to lawsuits for allowing minors to obtain material that depicts sexual content deemed “harmful” under existing Idaho law, which includes depictions of same-sex couples.

Books on list will require parental permission

Westfall said many of the books listed had already been labeled restricted or mature since 2004. The new restrictions only changed to require parental permission.

Students can see these books on the shelves, but they must attain a permission form from librarians and present a parent signature to check them out, she said.

Kuna schools don’t contain all of the books on the list. Kuna middle and high schools carry copies of “Speak,” by Laurie Halse Anderson, and “Identical,” by Ellen Hopkins, which now require parental permission.

Kuna High School’s library also contains “A Thousand Acres,” by Jane Smiley; “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini; “The Bluest Eye” and “Sula,” by Toni Morrison; and “Twisted,” by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Kuna superintendent: Removal would be ‘extreme’

In a message sent to the district’s secondary school principals, Superintendent Wendy Johnson said the district takes the removal of learning materials and resources seriously and considers it an “extreme measure.”

“As you may already know, the Legislature has been circulating a list of books that need to be removed from library shelves,” Johnson said in the message. “While a direct bill to remove these books has not officially happened, I wanted you to be aware of the titles on the list.”

According to Kuna School District policy, the district must consider less restrictive measures before removing a book or resource from its libraries.

“Given all of this, I think it is a good idea to place any book that you have in the library that is on this list ‘behind the shelf’ for the time being,” Johnson said. “I know we don’t have many of the titles on this list in our libraries or classroom libraries. The titles that we do have could just be flagged for parent permission until further direction is provided either from me or from the legislators.”