LCSD1 book policy draft gets more than 1,200 comments from the public

Nov. 17—CHEYENNE — More than 1,200 respondents wrote in to the Laramie County School District 1 Board of Trustees to share their thoughts on a controversial proposed change to the district's library book policy.

The draft policy — aimed at addressing some concerns about "sexually explicit" materials in school libraries — would replace the district's current "opt-out" policy, where parents can choose to restrict their child's access to certain books and content. It would replace it with a four-step "opt-in" policy, which critics say would convolute the library book access process.

The board took months to settle on a draft of the new policy, which would create four categories that range from no access to materials deemed sexually explicit to open access to all books.

The four options in the draft policy are:

— No access to sexually explicit materials;

— Parent-limited access to such materials (opt-in);

— Open access to all library materials; and

— No access to the library at all.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle conducted a brief review Friday of the first 1,037 responses to the book policy, published on the district's website. The responses are compiled from emails to the district, handwritten notes and responses to the comment form on the LCSD1 website.

By the WTE's estimation of the draft policy's first 1,037 responses, 766 replies expressed distaste for the proposed draft policy and 257 replies expressed some kind of favorable opinion. Fourteen others were not easy to categorize as either in favor or against.

This estimate is based on a cursory review of the first 26 pages of the district's published comments.

While many respondents wrote short yes or no statements about the draft policy, some chose to voice their opinion at greater length.

"I feel the new proposed policy (will) cause a great loss of talent in our district, as teachers are faced with yet another daunting task to catalog every single book," one critic of the draft policy wrote on Sept. 26. "Teachers are overworked and overtired already. Why are we adding more undue stress and difficulty to their days?"

Some supporters of the draft policy said that some books were too explicit for school and that the proposal was a necessary step toward keeping schoolchildren safe from sexual content at school.

"Vote yes on the changes to the library policy," one supporter wrote on Sept. 26. "... I have firsthand experience with my own child, who was given inappropriate books at the age of 14 without our knowledge. If a book cannot be read aloud to the board for being inappropriate, then it shouldn't be in our school libraries."

The WTE noted that several responses, both in favor and against the book policy, were submitted within a short timespan of one another and appeared to be duplicates or nearly identical to responses made sequentially with one another. In one instance, from 3:26 p.m. to 4:27 p.m. on Nov. 5, eight respondents wrote the statement "I support the opt-in policy," with slight variations in capitalization and punctuation.

The data was published online by the district with the names of all respondents redacted. For that reason, the WTE chose to count responses to the policy that had identical text to other responses, as we were unable to verify if two different people submitted identical responses or if one person submitted several duplicate responses.

A representative for the Wyoming Family Alliance for Freedom, a local interest group that has strongly opposed the draft policy, told the WTE Friday afternoon that the group had completed its own rough count of the responses.

They estimated that 68% of email responses opposed the policy changes and 29% favored them. The organization will issue a statement once that count is complete, they said.

LCSD1 officials said the district had not counted the number of responses to determine how many people supported or didn't support the proposed policy.

Kathy Scigliano, a supporter of the policy changes and head of the Cheyenne chapter of Moms for Liberty, could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

Samir Knox is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's criminal justice and public safety reporter. He can be reached by email at sknox@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3152. Follow him on Twitter at @bySamirKnox.