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Florida’s Public Schools: Your Local Psychometric Research Facility
Posted in Data Privacy, Public Schools, Uncategorized
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Florida’s Inappropriate School Surveys: Wait, How Many Surveys?
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Florida Education Rebranded Mental Health and Social Emotional Learning as “Resiliency”: Leading the Way with a Globalist Agenda
Posted in Data Privacy, Hillsborough Schools, PII, Public Schools, Uncategorized
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Public Schools: A Massive For-Profit Surveillance Operation
Schools surveil and collect data on children without your informed consent. School districts vary with respect to their Education Technology (EdTech) heavy handedness; but in my opinion one EdTech application is too many—it is data collection at risk of breach.
Our country is based on consent of the governed. Consent. Our founders fought for our liberty from British soldiers being stationed in our homes. Our thoughts, ideas, skills, and creations are our personal property.
Children are told they must use software in school, load apps on their personal phones, and/or operate web applications while on their home (owned) networks. When data is collected without consent, my definition of that is: spyware—especially when you ask to see what has been collected, who gets access, and they will NOT tell you. If you think laws are protecting you, think again; laws have loopholes.
Many school districts effectively mandate use of software that stations itself INSIDE our homes and personal property. Even worse, some of the software will report on your child if the AI is triggered! Don’t trigger the AI, the math might find your child dangerous, even when they are not in school.
We are not told:
- What data is collected,
- Every entity data is shared with,
- How long specific data will be kept,
- What is monitored on our home networks or cell phones,
- If it is collecting keystroke patterns (biometrics), or
- If data is used or shared to develop new educational products. (without compensation or consent as allowed under Florida’s SOPIPA law)
I could go on and on about what they don’t tell us. You get the idea.
As a parent, you are unlikely to receive the complete data held in association with your child’s identity by a third party—a third party the school district is effectively requiring your child interact with in school (or at home). I know, I fought for this data for YEARS. Letters, phone calls, federal complaints (FERPA), state complaints, etc.
Is EdTech a scam?!…where the district claims they protect your data but warns you no system can be 100% secure. They admit it—they CANNOT guarantee this data will be kept secure. This data is very attractive to hackers, and your children generate the data (money) that fuels this hundred-billion dollar plus industry.
Having data on paper is WAY more secure; how many people around the world are going to show up at the school’s front door attempting to steal the paper? Data held online in an application or storage database can be maliciously sought by anyone around the world. Not only is paper more secure, it will not lead to hundreds of millions of data points being collected on a single student.
If your state tells you that you have a right to see the data held in educational record then they need to prove it, because in Florida, I could not get the data.
Parental Rights—my %$$!
We refuse to agree to vendor policies and terms (contract) to access data schools should be freely sharing with parents, without requiring we contract with a third party to get it! They are holding a small portion of my kid’s data hostage (inside an app) unless I agree to these no-choice contracts. The bulk of the data held by those third parties, the district just won’t provide at all.
Parents: You are feeding the beast when you agree to third party contracts and install what I consider spyware on your phone.
There is no compelling state interest in this pervasive online data collection in school. It is unconstitutional.
Even if the software only collected metadata, which it innately does, I have the right to deny its use or pick and choose where I am willing to take a risk—I decide how much risk and exposure I want for my children and family online. Metadata is powerful information and based on school contracts I have read, it appears metadata is owned by the third party vendor who retains the right to use it as they see fit.
If they tell you metadata is de-identified, I would not be the first or the last to challenge the practical truth of that statement. Such claims are sophistry at work. Besides, I don’t care if it is anonymized, de-identified, or made into some ridiculously loopholed language or not, they would not have mountains of data from which to profit or surveil without USING our children (for profit). This is the business model of EdTech.
These technologies collect a boatload more than just metadata. EdTech can even retain intellectual property (IP) under the fair use doctrine. It seems though that fair use would mean you’ve published your original work or voluntarily given your IP to someone. Is it fair use when you are told you HAVE to give it away for mandatory schooling in an app without compensation?
This is no longer turn in your paper and the teacher gives it back. Your thoughts and ideas are gone. AI can train on your words and your ideas. You will never know if AI took your inventive idea for someone else. How will you know if a corporation used AI to siphon your ideas from your student paper for their own use?
Schools are becoming completely dependent on third parties to operate. These third parties get access to your child’s data, they can use it to train their AI, they can use it to surveil your children, and develop or improve new products in their portfolio (that they will use for profit). Your children’s data are the fuel for their profits. Our school district is far along in this tyrannical data collection scheme and the obliteration of parental rights.
How much of your child’s soul are you willing to let them to take?
Source: The Blue Dot, Issue No. 13,UNESCO MGIEP
MGIEP: Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development
Posted in Data Privacy, EdTech Tyranny, PII, Public Schools, Uncategorized
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BREACHED: Hillsborough Schools (FL) Seventh Largest School District in USA
On August 31, the country’s seventh largest school district sent correspondence to not all parents about a cybersecurity incident. Very little data is trickling out about what happened. Thirteen days later Hillsborough Schools has still not revealed when the malicious actors breached school systems.
On September 4, I emailed Superintendent Ayres and the Chief Technology Officer seeking comment on twelve questions. I sent a follow up email on September 11 asking for the district to respond to the questions.
Then on September 12, Hillsborough County School District (HCSD) answered TWO of the twelve questions. Their response was essentially a summary of what had already been communicated to not all parents in an update on September 5.
As of September 14, there is NO notice on Hillsborough County Schools Website about this breach. Not all parents are receiving email communications regarding the event.
It now appears the school district is picking and choosing with whom to release information, distinguishing a parent separately from the PTA executive board. Yesterday I discovered that a Facebook Group titled “Hillsborough County Council PTA/PTSA Advocacy Group” reported on September 6, that the Hillsborough County PTA executive board met with Superintendent Ayres and he revealed it was a ransomware event and that HCSD did not pay the ransom—the third question on my list, left unanswered.
Why has this new information not been provided to all parents and staff publicly?
This matters to parents and teachers, because very sensitive data has been collected without informed consent. In 2019, I wrote “Teachers, Parents, Countrymen: How Much of Your Personal Data Does the School District Share?” to bring attention to just how much sensitive data could be collected.
Here are the two answers they did provide to my questions (pictured below):
(2) “On August 31, the district sent correspondence to staff and families that it was addressing an apparent cybersecurity incident involving a number of technology systems in the district.”
(8) “We continue to be in communication with the FBI, FDLE, and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office regarding this incident.”
(11) “…worked to restore full function to our core operational systems…” This did not really answer my question, as it only references their core operational systems.
The district also wrote: “we have no indication that there was any unauthorized access to data stored in our student information system”.
Translation: there might have been unauthorized access, but we don’t know.
YOU, as the parent, have had YOUR power to protect your children from digital TYRANNY stripped from your soul. That God given natural right you have to protect your children as you see fit has been trampled by your government.
I will tell you how I know this.
Since 2016, I have battled with my heart and soul to protect my children from student data collection. My heart and soul were tested beyond belief by my school district as I spent endless hours, nights, weekends, and vacations researching and advocating to stop the data (and metadata) being stolen from my children and yours. They don’t care.
I have written US and state legislators, multiple FL Governors, FL Commissioners of Education, filed federal complaints, filed state complaints, reported a Hillsborough Schools classroom/student data breach in our school district to the Florida Department of Education Office of Inspector General (OIG) that resulted in a website being taken down, spoken public comment to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and much more. The results from my emails and letters: intra-government fingerpointing and “lack of jurisdiction.” Not one legislator reached out. I even traveled multiple times to Tallahassee to speak out against an “online protection” bill last session that does little to protect but does much to trample Parental Rights. The Parental Rights our Florida legislature claims to protect.
By 2016, our children were being tracked by a “learning management system” that was contracted as a gradebook but did way more than act as a “gradebook.” I wrote about my concerns with this system here and here and finally here—where I explained how my concerns from the first post were vindicated (because these same issues were investigated by another country!). We asked for our children to be removed or provided an alias in that system. We were told by the district that they did not think the vendor could do so at this time. This led to concerns the vendor was not properly qualified as a “school official” under FERPA. Why? Because under FERPA, for a vendor to qualify as a “school official” and thus collect or receive records, the school district must maintain direct control over the use and maintenance of educational records. As I understood the school district’s response, the vendor was in control; not the school district.
In 2018, I wrote to the Florida’s Department of Education to warn about the inadequacy and insecurity of Hillsborough School District’s password systems. Then in 2020, Boca News reported a “hack” in Palm Beach County School District, indicating the vulnerability was the very problem I reported to the state in 2018, nearly two years earlier.
My children were forced onto digital systems that collect behavioral data without my knowledge or consent, accounts were created in their identities with for-profit companies—collecting data. The district repeatedly denied us access to all of our children’s data, including what accounts were created by the school district with companies.
My first grader was sent to the principal’s office and threatened for standing up for his rights and for following our [parental] instructions: not to login to experimental learning platforms that collect his data. We were not called. Our child was forced to log into the system.
Unfortunately the State of Florida is contributing to this problem by instituting laws and policies that encourage this activity. Data Collection ramped up with the Statewide Longitudinal Data System pushed under Governor Jeb Bush (using federal grants) that created a need for student information systems. This activity and more continues through Florida’s actions today. For example, requiring cloud based solutions to be the first choice, and AI surveillance of students online—just two of many examples.
All data collected online is at risk.
Stand up for your parental rights and you will quickly learn you are actually living under tyranny—you just don’t know it yet. I encourage you to stand up because without every one of you, our rights will be continually eroded.
Just this week we were informed that our child’s best interests were to be held hostage again by another public school pay to play scheme. Let’s hope it will have a happy ending.
I will not be deterred from sharing what I know and believe about this industry.
Join me in standing up for your parental rights and protecting the innocence and privacy of our children.
Posted in Data Privacy, EdTech Tyranny, Hillsborough Schools, PII, Public Schools, Uncategorized
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Scholastic Bucks, Books, and Their Left-Overs
In 2018 I discovered the series Dork Diaries and the deleterious effects it has on children. Imagine your school book fair selling a book to your joyful seven year old; a book you have no idea is filled with a litany of atrocious behavior. Then listening, horrified, as your child naively emulates phrases from books with the following content:
“Just two minutes ago, she was Miss Thang with a funky attitude, talking trash and all up in my face like NOSE HAIR.” 1
“I wouldn’t WANT your PATHETIC life…” 2
“She’s so UGLY she might BREAK your camera!” 2
The trust I placed in school libraries and Scholastic was broken. I began my research on Scholastic Book Fairs.
With the recent public interest in Scholastic, I dug up my 2018 research to share this glaring problem: Scholastic designed a book fair program that negatively influences the curation of school library holdings every year, dumbing down school libraries. Their incentive programs result in packing libraries with books sourced from Scholastic’s curated catalogs, while time-tested classics are culled (tossed out); I discussed the ALA’s book banning of children’s classics in 2022. Together these organizations have transformed the character of our public school libraries into something most Americans do not want for their children.
Schools hold book fairs to fundraise for new library books. These fundraisers become necessary because public school districts often budget little to nothing for school library books. Yet, true to a for-profit operating in schools, Scholastic incents schools to convert book fair cash proceeds into Scholastic Dollars—fattening Scholastic’s bottom line:
“It’s a no-brainer. For choosing Scholastic Dollars, we reward you with up to 50% extra value for your Fair earnings.” 4
School earnings are available in cash, but according to Scholastic’s 2018 FAQ Page:
“…the best value, and the way to provide the highest number of great books and educational resources to your school, is to redeem your earnings in Scholastic Dollars…” 3
I disagree with that dubious claim that hinges on their definition of “great books”.
Schools are then locked into using their Scholastic dollars in Scholastic’s catalog—books and supplies the company pre-selects (i.e. limits) for your library or school:
“Redeem them [Scholastic Dollars] in the Scholastic Dollars Catalog” 4
In the world of books, that is likely a limited selection optimized to maximize Scholastic interests. In fact, given the books I found in their catalog, choosing this path would surely degrade the quality of holdings in our own at-home library.
Scholastic doesn’t stop there:
“After your Fair, redeem your Scholastic Dollars on your remaining stock.” 4
Of course they want schools to spend their proceeds on left-over book fair stock. Such a strategy could help Scholastic move slow inventory and fill libraries with book fair left-overs.
In January this year, they were still promoting the purchase of book fair left-overs with Scholastic Dollars by noting the obvious: “No shipping costs or wait time!” They want school libraries to buy up book fair rejects.
Consistent with their 2018 catalog, the second half of the 2022-2023 Scholastic Book Fair Catalog includes classroom supplies, furniture, carpets, gifts, and other non-book items. Many classics such as D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths are missing, but Charlotte’s Web is still there, so there’s that!
I challenge parents to count the children’s classics in the Scholastic Dollars Catalog!
Scholastic Dollars Book Fair Catalog offers a Greek Mythology set of eight for $262.32. Pictured here:
D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths is a children’s classic that includes 208 pages about many more than eight gods, goddesses, heroes and monsters, along with beautiful illustrations in hardcover for about $25-$27 depending on the vendor. My copy is pictured below.
Do school librarians fall prey to slick marketing, allowing Scholastic to decide which books to offer our children?!
Who decides what products Scholastic offers to sell at the school book fairs? Do they preference their highest margin products? I wonder if that is why we saw so many decorative erasers, dysfunctional pens, and bookmarks coming home from book fairs. Scholastic was called out in 2009 for misusing their book clubs to sell “toys, games, makeup and other items under the guise of a literary book club that is promoted in classrooms.”
In Scholastic’s 2016/2017 annual report:
“…Scholastic delivered significant growth…driven by new Harry Potter publishing and strong sales of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man and Captain Underpants series.”
Captain Underpants is a series that churns out potty talk. To excuse this kind of literature we are often told something like it is great material to engage reluctant readers—but even gifted voracious readers are fed these products that do a disservice to all children.
As a result of my research I prohibited my children from attending Scholastic Book Fairs. Although, one time I did relent when our children succumbed to the marketing enticements of Scholastic Book Fairs. Yet, the caveat was they were to be escorted by me, they could not buy overpriced Chinese tchotchkies, and their book choices had to be approved by me. During our trip we found VERY few books that were acceptable, but they each did find a book: one on reptiles and one about Virginia Hall.
Scholastic’s website now encourages the use of eWallets for children. Parents put money on an eWallet, then after the book sale eWallet funds convert to a gift card. Do eWallets enable Scholastic to track your child’s book choices? Clearly, your unspent funds are locked into Scholastic gift cards. They’ve thought of everything for promoting eWallet use, even “ready-made promos for email and social media” including downloadable Letters to Teachers, Flyers for Families, social media posts, etc.
They even offer bonus incentives to earn extra scholastic dollars to “Promote eWallet friends and family sharing”
If schools push eWallets or spend Scholastic Dollars to stock classroom libraries, the school can earn extra scholastic dollars!
Your kids are a captive audience and the government allows product placement in school libraries by a for-profit company exhibiting what feels like predatory marketing.
The solution is simple: end Scholastic book fairs and demand your school districts create a reasonable budget for school libraries to purchase quality literature in the open market.
1 Russell, Rachel Renée. Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Perfect Pet Sitter. Aladdin, July 2016, p. 29
2 Russell, Rachel Renée. Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Friendly Frenemy. Aladdin, Nov 2016, pp.146, 229.
3 2018, (source now redirects elsewhere):
https://web.archive.org/web/20180806090559/http://direct.www.scholastic.com/bookfairs/scholasticdollars/faq.asp
4 2022, (source also redirects after landing) https://web.archive.org/web/20220824131231/https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/content/fairs/chairperson/case-profit.html
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Part II. The Quiet Culling of Children’s Classics: Are Public School Librarians the Real “Book Banners”?
Asking questions, listening to my kids, and trusting my instincts: this was how I discovered what was going on in libraries.
In 2017 my children were coming home with very poor quality literature. They could read one of these “books” in 20 minutes. Our books at home took hours for them to read; something didn’t seem right with these library books. The book covers looked cartoonish and commercialized. I flipped through them and discovered many modeled detrimental behavior such as how-tos on bullying, crude humor, disrespect toward adults and the elderly, and socially unacceptable behavior and language.
I asked my children to select more enriching books and guided them on what to seek. They came home empty handed, time and time again. They reiterated only a few books were available, but they’d already read them. So in 2017 I researched library holdings from several of our district’s elementary school libraries; it was VERY concerning.
Recently, I performed a more extensive search of library holdings at one library from the 2017 analysis. The search was expanded to 102 classics and well-regarded children’s authors. Many of these authors are on Mensa reading lists, NIH reading lists, and an author list published by Dr. Sandra Stotsky.
The selected elementary school is an A rated elementary school in Hillsborough County Public Schools, FL with over 800 students in 2022-23. What I found, or rather didn’t find, in this library is alarming.
Children’s classics seem to have been disappeared from this school library serving over 800 students. Today, there are six fewer book titles in this library from the list of 35 authors selected in 2017.
From the expanded selection of 102 authors, there were only 151 books in the library. 53% of these authors had ZERO books in this library. 91% of these authors had three or fewer books in this library. (See pie chart below.) Keep in mind some of these 102 authors wrote dozens of children’s books and many wrote more than a few.
The 102 authors are represented by an average of only 1.48 books per author. If the top 5 authors (contemporary authors) were removed, this average falls to 0.87 books per author.
On the other hand, there are 194 books in this school library from just five popular, contemporary authors that include titles like Captain Underpants, Dog Man, and Dork Diaries. (See bar graph below). The Captain Underpants series is frequently found on “banned book” lists, yet there are plenty of these books in this library. These five authors average 39 books per author and represent 1.96% of the library holdings (9,896 books). Five authors represent a larger percentage of this library’s holdings than 102 highly-respected authors.
Who is really disappearing books, our history, and our common cultural heritage? This is The Quiet Culling of Children’s Classics.
Posted in Hillsborough Schools, Kids Books, Public Schools, Uncategorized
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The Quiet Culling of Children’s Classics: Are Public School Librarians the Real “Book Banners”?
Critics call them “Book Banners”, “Book Burners”, even “Fascists”, but parents simply do not want anyone exposing children to graphic, obscene, and profane material behind their backs. This disingenuous name-calling obscures the truth: too many school librarians have ALREADY “banned books”. Libraries are full of series after series of dumbed down children’s publications, but classics are disappearing and with it knowledge of our history and common cultural heritage.
In 2021 CNN wrote “Libraries oppose censorship. So they’re getting creative when it comes to offensive kids’ books”. I wondered, just HOW creative?
The article wasn’t talking about “offensive kids’ books” that depict graphic and obscene sexual behavior. It was referring to Dr. Seuss books, Little House on the Prairie, and Peter Pan.
According to CNN, Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said:
It’s up to librarians, then, to determine whether those books and others with racist content still deserve a spot on their shelves.
“The fact is that library collections are dynamic,” she said. “There’s only so much shelf space, and over time collections will shift.”
If a librarian decides a book is “no longer serving the needs of the community,” it may be weeded out, Caldwell Stone said.
The quoted ALA director tip-toes creatively around the word “ban” again and again; using language like shifting collections, sidelining books, carving out space for other books, weeding books that no longer serve community needs, moving books to the adult collection, or relegating offensive children’s classics to historical artifact. In other words, a “book ban”.
While the article does say these offensive books may still stay on shelves, the ALA policies seem designed to remove them.
In 2018 the ALA stripped Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a book award because history is insensitive. This is just another attempt to erase history, and that will not lead to an informed populace. This is to be expected from the Marxist-led American Library Association.
The ALA creatively discourages or sidelines books they don’t like, then masquerades as an advocate of Intellectual Freedom and protector from literary censorship! Librarians have the freedom to relegate traditional children’s classics to the archives and make room for 50+ Captain Underpants and Dog Man books while claiming to widen and expand the children’s library collection.
Look closely, what do you notice about these shelves from a school library? The collection did not expand, it contracted down to one-half to two-thirds empty shelves. I searched this half-shelf phenomenon; librarians are emptying shelves on purpose!? I observed this years ago between local public library visits with my kids. It was pretty obvious what had happened. There was an extensive removal of library books and it stayed that way.
What happens when children’s classic books are sidelined? Do these great time-tested classics become less circulated? Does the ALA encourage librarians to weed-out less circulated books? I imagine so.
The ALA recommends the CREW procedures for weeding books from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. This CREW manual states:
Under Easy Readers/Picture Books: “Weed any book that has not circulated in the past two years.” and “Consider moving classics that may be used by children’s literature classes to the adult 800s.”
For Juvenile Fiction: “Copyright is less important than use, but consider weeding anything that hasn’t circulated in the past two years.” and “Weed older award winners if they have not circulated in three years,…”
For Young Adult Fiction:“Keep this section very current. Any item that has not circulated within two years should be considered ‘dead’ and removed (and anything that hasn’t circulated within the past year is suspect and should be evaluated for promotion, relocation, or discard).”
Is the ALA encouraging the strategic removal of older copyrights and high-quality children’s classics from school libraries?
The American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) Journal, Knowledge Quest, published a post suggesting statistics can help defend why librarians need to weed out books. Statistics such as “Books whose publication dates are older than you (or your kids). (This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but one to consider)”
“Want to weed 1,000 books? Keep tweaking your limits until you reach the number of books you need to weed”
Wow. Using publication date to remove a desired number of books! That sounds like a money maker for book sellers and publishers! Are school libraries being monetized too?
The Virginia Association of School Librarians offers a “Follett School Solutions’ Weed and Feed Grant” that requires weeding books in order to achieve “improvement in average copyright age and/or circulations after weeding of the book collection.” [emphasis added]
Weed to increase average copyright age?! That is a good policy for erasing history. It is like trashing your bottles of aged French Burgundy and replacing it with new boxed-wine. What’s next? Are Michelangelo, Picasso, Monet, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder to be tossed aside for new computer art?
Weed to increase circulation?! That is like a grocer saying we aren’t turning our inventory enough, let’s remove the broccoli and put candy bars there instead! Just give ‘em the CANDY and SODA, it sells more and who needs nutrition?!!
Change the foods offered and change people’s health. Change the books offered and change what and how a child thinks.
Remove food that promotes health and people become unhealthy.
The ALA suggests sidelining offensive classics. Then school library organizations encourage removal of books with poor circulation and older publication dates.
In Florida, the reading award program, SSYRA, was heavily marketed to students in our elementary school. One requirement of books selected for this program is “Books must have been originally copyrighted within the three years preceding selection.” JUST. THREE. YEARS.
Our school district’s Library Media Center Collection Management policy states: “The school library media specialist shall discard worn, obsolete and inoperable items from the collection;…The library media specialist shall select new and replacement materials in order to duplicate older titles which have proven their worth.”
This is a nebulous policy, it is not clear. By what standard are titles proving their worth?
Are we losing the children’s classics in school libraries or are they already gone?
In the next post, I will answer that question and provide you with a more extensive survey from one of the five school libraries I researched in 2017.
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The ALA’s Dedication to Transforming Public School Libraries
Let’s take a peek into the American Library Association (ALA) and a few of its’ divisions that appear to be executing an end run around parents and restrictions intended to comply with laws protecting children from CRT, obscene, and age-inappropriate material. Might some say that the ALA is an operation overtly indoctrinating not only children but also librarians?
In June 2021 the Florida Department of Education banned the “teaching of the controversial topic of critical race theory [CRT]” and then in April this year the legislature prohibited the teaching of CRT in schools. Despite these actions Hillsborough County School District continues to rely on the ALA. To clear up any confusion about why Florida school districts should not be affiliating with the ALA, the title from an April 2022 article should help: “World’s Largest Library Association Picks Self-Proclaimed Marxist As President.”
The ALA explains in the document below that its’ subgroup, “The Challenges to CRT and Diversity Training Toolkit” met in September 2021 to prepare librarians for “censorship challenges to ‘critical race theory’…” with the goal of creating “a resource that will prepare library workers to defend their collections, counter falsehoods, and engage their communities in important conversations about racial injustice…”
This sounds like they are actively engaged in ways to combat opposition to CRT. So, why would a Florida school district use standards, guidance, and book lists from an organization actively supporting CRT when it has been banned in Florida?
How are books in Hillsborough County Public School (HCPS) libraries selected? HCPS responded to a record request with a document titled “Polices and Procedures for the Selection of Media Materials [sic].” Their policies and procedures are based on an ALA publication and include several ALA recommended resources (book lists) to assist in book selection. The HCPS document also provides a link to the ALA Selection Policy Toolkit.
HCPS also linked their document in Canva (that can be clicked through) with an added diagram and sticker claiming AASL / ALA “policies align with state and national standards”; so they say.
Welcome to the ALA. Here is a visual of the Toolkit referenced in HCPS “Polices [sic]”.
The toolkit describes its’ policies for selecting controversial materials here:
If you donate books such as Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie to your school library, will the library keep or dispose of them? Given the smearing of Wilder by the ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children), another division of the ALA, the total absence of Wilder’s books on frontier life in some HCPS libraries is not surprising. Here is the ALA toolkit guidance on donations:
The ALA also appears to promote “banned” book lists and encourages school librarians to create displays of “banned” books during Banned Book Week. In fact, the ALA has an entire website dedicated to Banned and Challenged Books, a website of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom.
It is disingenuous to describe a book that violates obscenity laws for minors as “banned”. Any book that violates the obscenity law cannot be distributed in Florida public schools.
The ALA also hosts an ALA Connect website for groups like The Progressive Librarians Guild, an organization committed to “supporting activist librarians” and “providing a forum for open exchange of radical views…”
There are more ALA affiliated organizations—including the AASL (American Association of School Librarians). The AASL states they are “the only national professional membership organization focused on school librarians and the school library community.”
The AASL 2023 National Conference will be held in Tampa.
Next, is YALSA. YALSA is the Young Adult Library Services Association, also a division of the ALA. One YALSA book list is referenced in the HCPS Media Services “Polices and Procedures [sic]” document. Here is a visual of their Book & Media Lists:
YALSA recommends its “Best Fiction for Young Adults” for ages 12-18; your 12-year-old is now a “young adult.”
Here is an excerpt from the 2020 YALSA Top 10 Best Fiction list:
The ALA appears to be thumbing their nose at parental rights and parents who do not want their 12-year-olds accessing library material about sex, abortion, drug addiction, and shooting up.
Why are school librarians using standards produced by an organization that promotes age-inappropriate material be made available to their 12 year olds; including highlighting the material in jailhouse displays during banned book week?
Posted in Hillsborough Schools, Kids Books, Public Schools, Uncategorized
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CitizensLighthouse 