KXAN published September 16, 2021: Lake Travis ISD pulls, will review book deemed sexually explicit. Lake Travis Independent School District confirmed to KXAN it pulled a book from the libraries of two middle schools following at least one complaint.
I’m sharing this because it’s not isolated: not far from me in a small Texas town a board member discovered a children’s book in their foundation library that taught young boys how to “pleasure” older men - their librarian had ordered it & placed it there. https://t.co/PL1t6Zzj6s
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) September 21, 2021
The Blaze
written by Dave Urbanski
Monday September 20, 2021
Saying that Kara Bell was a bit upset at board members of the Lake Travis Independent School District in Austin, Texas, is a bit of an understatement.
No, Bell — a local mom and former board member candidate — was livid during the school board meeting last week over a middle school library book she deemed sexually explicit, KXAN-TV reported.
And watching video of Bell reading a passage from the book to the board, some might be inclined to argue that she's on to something.
"Take her out back, we boys figured, then hand on the t***ies, put it in her cornbox, put it in her cornhole, grab a hold of that braid, rub that calico," she recited to the board, before adding, "You can find that on page 39 of the book called 'Out of Darkness,' which you can find at Hudson Bend Middle School and Bee Cave Middle School."
"Out of Darkness" is a 2015 young adult novel by Ashley Hope Pérez, the station said.
Bell continued, "All right, not gonna lie, had to Google 'cornhole' because I have the game in the back of my yard. But according to Wikipedia, 'cornhole' is a sexual slang vulgarism for anus. The term came into ... use in the 1910s in the United States ... its verb form 'to cornhole,' which came into usage in the 1930s, means to have anal sex."
Then she blasted the board members: "I do not want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school! I've never had anal sex! I don't want to have anal sex! I don't want my kids having anal sex! I want you to start focusing on education and not public health!"
At that point Bell's microphone was cut off, but her school board takedown can still be heard on video: "You are not public health officials; you are supposed to be educating our children! Do not teach them about anal sex!"
What happened next?
The school district told KXAN the book in question was removed from both middle school libraries and that its contents will be reviewed.
"A district possesses significant discretion to determine the content of its school libraries," the district spokesperson told the station, citing school board policy. "A district must, however, exercise its discretion in a manner consistent with the First Amendment."
The spokesperson added to KXAN that the "district shall not remove materials from a library for the purpose of denying students access to ideas with which the district disagrees. A district may remove materials, because they are pervasively vulgar or based solely upon the educational suitability of the books in question."
The district told the station it doesn't know how long the review of the book will take.
What is the book about?
The station said "Out of Darkness" is about a love affair between a black boy and a Mexican-American girl amid a 1937 explosion in East Texas that killed nearly 300 schoolchildren and teachers, citing an NBC News article published just after the book was released.
Pushback
Jonathan Friedman of Pen America, which KXAN said is a nonprofit that "defends diversity, inclusion and free expression in literature," told the station that many books with sexually explicit content have holistic value that includes diverse viewpoints and exposing young people to the realities of the world.
"Central Texas is one among many areas in the country that have become hotspots for these eruptions of local anger and disagreement," Friedman added to KXAN. "I think to pretend books that deal explicitly with sex or sexual assault are in some way a threat to young people are doing them a disservice. This is about having access for young people to a wide variety of literature that people from different backgrounds are reflected in."
Friedman also took direct aim at moms and dads, telling the station that "you have a small contingent in many cases of parents who decide that they disagree, and that they must know better than those who are in the classroom."
Breitbart News published September 17, 2021: "We Sucked Each Others' D*cks" -- Mom Reads Sexually Explicit School Library Book to Board. A mother from Leander, Texas, addressed the Leander school board this month, expressing her outrage about a book that contained sexually explicit material that her high school son was reading for class.
Independent Chronicle
written by Maria Wheeler
Monday September 13, 2021
A video of a Texas mom went viral after she excoriated her local school board for sexually explicit content in the books provided to her children at school.
“Who normalizes sex acts between fourth graders?” she raged at the board. “I’ll tell you who: pedophiles.”
She explained to the board that she had asked her children to see the books they had brought home and was utterly disturbed by the content. She read some of the quotes from a particular book, “Lawn Boy,” by Jonathan Evison out loud in the meeting. The full video can be viewed here.
“What if I told you I touched another guy’s d**k? What if I told you I sucked it? I was 10 years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goebbel’s d**k in my mouth. I was in fourth grade. It was no big deal, he sucked mine too. And you know what? It wasn’t terrible.”
Other parents attending the meeting held large photos of school board members with captions “Vote Out” and “Resign.”
“He talked about old times at the church, but never mentioned our penises or the fact that he never said ten words to me after our little foray in the bushes. Not a single reference to holding or tugging or sucking d**ks. All I could think about while he was chatting me up was his little salamander between my fourth grade fingers, rapidly engorging with blood,” the mom read aloud from another chapter of the book.
The mom accused the school of sexual harassment. “What sort of educational environment do you think the sexually graphic book selections create for my children, or for any child for that matter?”
She went on to say, “In addition, I’ll share with you the exceptional quality of the vocabulary. I stopped counting on page 66 after ‘44 ‘f**ks’ and 41 ‘s**ts.’”
This is not the first time that parents in the Leander Independent School District have objected to explicit curriculum. In March, the Daily Wire reported that “Students as young as 13 in Leander Independent School District, Austin, TX, have been exposed to graphic sexual content as part of their course work, including graphic verbal depictions of gang rape and other sexual acts.”
Parents became aware of the issue after their children told them about the content. Upon bringing up the issue to the school, these parents were met with harassment and called “religious zealots,” “bigots,” “racists,” and “d**ks.”
“Some of the people speaking out have received anonymous cardboard penises in the mail with anti-Christian messages calling them names such as c**t,” one parent said. “Others have received dead animals on their porches.”
Bruce Gearing, Superintendent of the Leander Independent School District, did not immediately respond when the Independent Chronicle contacted him for comment.
UPDATE 9/14/2021: A representative of Leander ISD responded to Independent Chronicle, stating that the particular book referenced in the video is not part of required reading but is available in some high school classroom libraries. An earlier version of this story indicated that “Lawn Boy” was required reading.
The district provided a statement that included the following information: “We have processes in place for parents to formally request books that they have concerns about. District staff has reached out to the concerned citizens you mentioned over the last several weeks to outline the ways to bring those concerns to the attention of the district and the Board of Trustees, as well as how to request a review of those materials. We have processes in place to review concerns and work with families. To date, no one has formally requested a review of that title.”
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