Nixa School District Issues Ban, Restrictions on Three Books

A southwest Missouri School District has issued a ban and some restrictions on books.

Parker Padgett and Connor Wilson covers the story for Ozarks First:

The Nixa school board banned or restricted three books from their district.

A first in almost two decades.

“All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto” and “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” were both banned, and a third book, “Homegoing,” was restricted.

“Once it is appealed to the board, then the board takes all of the information,” Nixa School Board President Linda Daughtery said. “We read the books, we review everything, and we make a decision based on what each individual, there are seven members, what they believe is best taking in all the information.”

The district received 17 complaints about books with mature themes earlier this year. Only three made it to the school board for consideration.

“The majority of those books all had concerns of sexually explicity material or sexually explicit and graphic descriptions,” library liaison David Liss said.

Opinions on the school board ruling are split. Some parents are happy with how the school board chose to rule.

“I think we have lost the value of protecting innocence,” parent Jennifer Rosebrock said. “I think that that’s something really important. And I think it’s up to the parents to decide what they deem, you know, where they set the boundaries for their kids.”

Another parent, Tamara Yancy, said the parent’s right to choose should not infringe hers.

“If parents have a problem with that content, they are able to tell the librarians, you know, the librarians are able to notate the account and restrict their children from checking out those books. However, if they are removed from the library, I don’t even get that chance,” Yancy said. “It’s just simply not even a choice for me.”

Both parents talk about what other options students will have to use, now that these books are unavailable in the school libraries.

“There’s a lot of other places for them to find those materials,” Rosebrock said. “I mean, they can buy it online. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. There’s lots of places where they can buy that material. They can go to the public library and find those books.”

“They are not all available in Christian County libraries,” Yancy said. “If I, as a resident of Christian County, want to have a Greene County library card I have to pay money. So there’s a barrier. Transportation, when we’re talking about students of non-driving age, there’s a barrier. There’s just too many barriers I feel put in place that where that’s not really a viable option.”

The Springfield-Greene County Library said while they don’t know if it is directly tied to the Nixa Board ruling, but they are seeing multiple holds on all the books the board ruled against.