It seems the data on the book censorship event is more complicated than the version given me by the Public Affairs Office, which may not have known the details about which I later learned. At least I hope it didn't for I have found Cobbe a reliable expert in her job heretofore. The supervisor of the middle-schools told the media specialists to pull the book from the four middle schools in which it was on the shelves. She claims this was done with no prompting from above, that she did so because the book bore the label 9th grade and above. I find that hard to believe. The administration will subject anyone who sneezes to the gauntlet of Professional Standards Abu Graib, so pulling books on one's own authority is not the sort of thing field hands in fear of the lash would initiate common sense tells me. That the supervisor questioned their judgment offended the four media specialists. Apparently, middle schools have students as old as 16 who have not graduated from middle school to high school to whom this book appeals. When the supervisor of the media specialists learned the middle-school media specialists were wroth at her decision to pull the books, she reversed herself and said to put them back on the shelves until the committee had made a decision on the books. Jennifer The Gavel Falliero sent Bart Birdsall, media specialist, an email telling him the decision was out of the board's hands now and in the hands of the review committee. She wanted this hot potato distanced from the board because the media bacame interested in it. The media can become interested in things from time to time. And The Gavel Falliero does not want the media probing the details of her turbulent personal life that spills over into her professional life right now. My question is why there was tumult on the podium after the woman made her complaint about the book's content, which Falliero called "repulsive," a condition The Gavel may understand better than most on the podium. Why didn't one or all of them say, "This has to go through the usual procedure of a committee of parents', teachers', and students' reviewing and judging it for suitability"? Why did Ms. Elia start yammering about the state's involvement? Why did Griffin say to be circumspect? Why didn't the lawyer point out the policy? In short, why didn't anybody on the podium know the policy? They know their right to give bids to just-retired administrators without a business-phone protocol in place. Why haven't they mastered the controls against censorship of books on the library shelves? Is it because the former is important to them and the latter isn't? This was another instance of ubiquitous administration incompetence--and this time joined by the board incompetence. This lack of ready knowledge about the procedure to protect against censorship and book burning is the type of obtuse behavior that does not justify the sky-high pay the administration gets or these board members' getting elected, for that matter. And speaking of pay, the top administrators under Ms. Elia whom she appoints and who are thus not on the pay charts waived a whopping advance in their pay prospects recently because they did not want to make Ms. Elia look bad. Of course, they would not have done so had a member of the press not questioned them on the mentioned writing about it. That's how these minions of tax-payer pay largesse via the conduit of Elia with the board's rubber- stamp advance up the ladder of complicity and big bucks in this ROSSAC world of buddy administration: protecting Ms. Elia from looking bad to the public.	Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:45:09 EST
	"Repulsive" text
	jennifer.faliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us
	Carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us, Doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us, april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us, jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us, candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us, susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us, lee_decesare@yahoo.com, MaryEllen.Elia@sdhc.k12.fl.us, kmccook@tampabay.rr.com

Dear Board Chair Faliero,

I was surprised to see the Tampa Tribune article on TBO.com by Marilyn Brown in which you are quoted saying that the book *Just Listen* by Sarah Dessen is "repulsive."

I believe you should always read a book in its entirety BEFORE passing judgment on it. Below is the school district's challenged book procedure:

B. The School Media Resources Committee will follow these procedures:

1.Read, view and/or listen to the material in its entirety and complete the appropriate checklist.

2.Read reviews of the material in professional reviewing sources.

3.Determine the extent to which the material supports the curriculum.

4.Weigh merits against alleged faults in light of the material as a whole, rather than isolated passages out of context.

5.Meet as a group and discuss material prior to examining complainant's completed form.

6.Reach a decision and prepare a written report.

7.Send a copy of the report to the principal, the media supervisor, and appropriate subject-area supervisors.

In the excerpt above I did not highlight anything myself. It was copied and pasted from the school district website exactly how I found it. Notice that Number 1 says that you should read material "in its entirety".....

I hear through the grapevine that Candy Olson has asked for a copy of the book to read. That is the intelligent response before passing judgment on a book. In fact, we ask outraged parents to do the same.

I urge you to read the book in its entirety before you decide whether you consider it to be repulsive.

I would also hesitate to take anyone serious who finds a passage disgusting and wants a book taken off shelves when she feels free to read the very passage aloud on television on a show that will be replayed over and over and will be available online. If she wants to protect children, she would avoid this. This is not someone who is playing with a full deck, in my opinion. According to the article she is allowing her child to read the book now. Meanwhile, she wants to keep other children from reading it. This is bizaare behavior. It is not rational behavior whatsoever, and I am disappointed that a school board member and a Superintendent would take such a person seriously.

History does not judge people who want to ban books well. Below is a list of books that have been banned across the nation through the years:

A Raisin in the Sun

Fahrenheit 451

Heart of Darkness

Of Mice and Men

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Joy Luck Club

Brave New World

Bridge to Terabithia

The Catcher in the Rye

The Color Purple

The Outsiders

James and the Giant Peach

The Grapes of Wrath

The Scarlet Letter

To Kill a Mockingbird

The list goes on and on......most people who push for the banning of books end up looking like laughingstocks and fools or backwater, country bumpkins who are uneducated. It is not shocking to hear of book banning in Alabama, but it is quite shocking in cosmopolitan places like New York, San Francisco, and probably the entire continent of Europe. Rational people laugh at these book banning people, not only when the person challenges the book right then and there but for years and years after. Like I said, history does not judge them well at all.

As school district personnel we have a duty to the American public to honor our founding fathers' wishes of Intellectual Freedom and to take on a leadership position in educating the public about books. I have never seen one single piece of research that proves that books harm a child. Parents should thank God their child is reading anything nowdays, because to read is to raise awareness and to become more intelligent. More information is never a bad thing.

My parents allowed me to read anything and everything when I was in elementary, middle, and high school. I read *Looking for Mr. Goodbar* in middle school with their approval. They trusted my judgment. Interestingly enough most of my friends consider me a total prude, and my life reads almost like a 1950s story. Meanwhile, every single person I have known in life who is OUTRAGED by things like this book are doing all sorts of things behind closed doors. I find the hypocrisy amazing.

Exposure to literary texts do not corrupt a child. Exposure to hypocrisy does.

I urge you to read the book and to uphold the principles that American democracy and EDUCATION stand for......

Sincerely,

Bart Birdsall