Censorship or good practice? Wake teachers face new rules for reading aloud in class.

Wake County teachers have a “captive classroom audience” of students so new rules could go into effect soon on how they pick what materials are read aloud in class.

The Wake County school board has given initial approval to an updated policy on selection of instructional materials that includes requiring teachers to make sure that the material that will be read aloud is not “pervasively vulgar.” The policy also say teachers must talk with other school staff about the reading passage before it is read aloud.

“This is an attempt, difficult and challenging as it is, to just elevate that reality that there is a difference in practice between reading a text aloud to a captive audience of students whether they’re elementary age, high school age or middle school age,” Drew Cook, Wake’s assistant superintendent of academics, told school board members last month.

The new wording is raising concerns from some educators that it will lead to censorship.

“The fact that selection of read alouds is singled out as something that must be done in collaboration with others implies a lack of trust for our professionals’ understanding and knowledge of age-relevant literature,” Kristel Behrend, a librarian at Knightdale High School, said at a school board meeting last month. “What’s even more concerning is the amount of self-censorship that will happen as a result of this addition.”

The school board could give final approval to the policy update next week.

Athens Drive investigation

The policy update comes amid heated local and national debate about what books should be allowed in school libraries and what materials should be used in classrooms.

The changes also come after Wake investigated allegations that a teacher at Athens Drive High School in Raleigh had students read aloud about masturbating to pictures of nude movie stars. The passage was an excerpt from the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie.

Jessica Lewis, a parent and frequent critic of the school district, says she witnessed the incident when she was substitute teaching at Athens Drive.

“Do you honestly think our kids want to read this trash, especially in front of their peers?” Lewis said at a school board meeting in April. “I can answer that question as I was in the classroom when a female student said she was not going to read it and was laughed at by her teacher and peers.”

Citing personnel laws, Wake says it can’t discuss the results of the human resources investigation. District records show that the Athens Drive teacher who was investigated has not been suspended.

“The policy revision related to read alouds was not in direct response to the Athens Drive High activity, nor to any specific activity in any school,” Sara Clark, a Wake school spokesperson, said in an email. “But the Athens Drive issue was discussed as an example due to the instructional nature of the activity with its inclusion of a chosen text.”

‘Captive classroom audience’

Unlike the current policy on selecting instructional materials, the updated version adds a section on read alouds. The policy says materials selected for read alouds will be made by teachers “in collaboration with other school staff.”

Among the principles used for selecting materials for read alouds is whether it is “pervasively vulgar.” The new wording is taken from state law on book challenges.

State law doesn’t define “pervasively vulgar.” But Cook, the assistant superintendent, said that having a group instead of one person involved “is much more likely to hit the community mark” for defining what is pervasively vulgar.

Other principles to be specifically considered for read alouds are:

▪ ”The needs, age, and maturity level of the students in the classroom.”

▪ ”The fact that additional care and discretion is required for selecting materials to be read aloud to a captive classroom audience as opposed to a voluntary reading selection by students.”

▪ ”The teacher should first independently read the text as a whole before selecting a text or passage for read aloud.”

The policy adds that principals have the power to discontinue having a text read aloud at their school.

‘Pre-work’ on Emmett Till

As an example, Cook cited the case of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager who was tortured, mutilated and shot in August 1955 after allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.

Till’s open-casket funeral and the widely publicized photos of his disfigured face helped spark the American Civil Rights Movement.

“As a former U.S. history teacher, if I was going to teach a lesson on Emmett Till and we were going to read passages about him or show a photograph of his autopsy, then there better be some pre-work that happens on the front end,” Cook said.

Cook said that pre-work would include talking with other history teachers and making judgments about the readiness of students to read from a book they haven’t chosen to read.

Cook said that teachers also need to remember that parents can opt their children out of reading specific books. He said teachers shouldn’t invalidate that parental decision by using those books during a read aloud.

School board support for change

The policy changes drew support from school board members at last month’s policy committee meeting.

“I don’t want to micromanage the whole process,” said school board member Wing Ng. “Even just having it here in the policy is a good attempt to bring it up as a point that is concerning to the community.”

School board chair Lindsay Mahaffey, a former middle school teacher, said the wording on read alouds is good educational practice.

“I can think of times where I thought, you know, ‘Oh I remember this book from my childhood, I would love to read it to my own kids,’” Mahaffey said at the committee meeting. “And then we start reading it I’m going, ‘I don’t know about that.’”

‘Stand up for intellectual freedom’

Behrend, the school librarian, praised the district for work on a related policy that would make decisions on book challenges binding for two years. She said that limit could prevent library media staff “from being bogged down in a quagmire of repeat challenges purely designed to waste resources.”

But Behrend said the new wording about read alouds may cause teachers to shy away from encouraging their students to read.

“If I’m a first-grade teacher with five minutes left in class before buses are called, am I going to grab a book that isn’t pre-approved or just let kids play on their technology?” Behrend said. “Would I read a beautiful book like ‘And Tango Makes Three’ or do I fear retribution for sharing a beautiful true story of two male penguins raising an egg that could be labeled pervasively vulgar?”

Behrend said the board should consider the “fallout” from any policy revisions.

“I want this board to stand up for intellectual freedom,” Behrend said. “I want you to assure your teachers and librarians that you believe in our professionalism and the work we are doing.

“I want you to assure all parents that their children and families will be represented honestly in our literature and I want you to assure students that you do respect their First Amendment right to access high quality literature.”