Cliff Buchan
News Editor

Laurie Causey may not have gotten what she wanted in a book challenge request, but the Hugo parent did get something.

Causey was not able to persuade the ISD 831 School Board to uphold her official curriculum challenge on Aug. 2, but she did hear a sincere apology from board members and administrators that the district did not follow its policy of informing parents that a potentially controversial book was going to be used.

Causey went before the school board on June 28 with a formal challenge regarding the book “The Giver” by Lois Lowry which was read aloud in a Grade 5 class at Scandia Elementary where Causey’s son was a student. Causey formally challenged the use of the book under Policy 605 and her appeal to the school board was her last resort through the district policy.

A district committee for challenged materials, however, did not support the parent after she objected to its use last spring, recommending that the challenge be overturned and the book be allowed to remain in use.

Causey maintained the book was inappropriate for students in Grade 5 because of references to sexual fantasies and infanticide.

Causey did not go away empty-handed during the board’s regular meeting last week.

‘We screwed up.’

Board members and Superintendent Lynn Steenblock admitted the district dropped the ball by not informing Causey of the book’s use and that the book may be controversial.

Board President Bill Bresin said it has been district policy to let parents know when such material may be used and parents might have concerns.

Bresin and Steenblock both pledged that the district will do a better job in the future.

Steenblock said the district was “lax” in this instance. In other cases where sex education is involved, for example, he said the district was always proactive with parents when it believed any kind of controverial material may be taught.

“It’s an automatic our parents are notified,” Steenblock said.

Board member Joe Grafft was a bit harder on the board and administration.

After reading the book, Grafft said he would be concerned, too, as a parent, that the book was not appropriate at the Grade 5 level. He agreed with Causey that the book may work well at the junior high school level, but not at the elementary.

Grafft insisted that the parents need to be involved in knowing what curriculum pieces are being selected and in this case the parent was not informed.

By the time Causey became aware of the book’s use, the unit was half over, she said in June.

“We screwed up. We didn’t do that,” Grafft said of the notification process.

Book upheld

In the end, however, the school board was hesitant to go against its challenge review committee, but did agree to request that the board policy committee review Policy 605 as a top priority with regard to Causey’s concern for the committee make up and to insure the policy reflects the establishment of a process that provides reading lists to parents.

Member Rob Rapheal was the leading defender of Policy 605 and the committee process. He said he could not support any ban for the book.

He felt the book was appropriate after talking with other Scandia area parents and his daughter who had read the book while in Grade 5 at Scandia Elementary School.

Rapheal said he believed the book offered a lesson to push kids to learn to “think for themselves” and did not exceed boundaries of what is appropriate.

Member Eric Langness said his research of the book raised numerous “red flags” that it and the author were not appropriate for the fifth-grade level. With the American Library Association rating the book the 11th most controversial in the county, Langness said he could see little value in using it at the elementary school level.

“It’s not fifth-grade material,” Langness said.

When Langness opined that he did not believe kids that age could comprehend the material, Rapheal shot back.

“Then you underestimate our kids,” Rapheal said to Langness.

Members Dan Kieger and Grafft agreed the material was not appropriate for elementary students but were reluctant to ban it.

As a book to augment historical lessons related to Nazi Germany and World War II, member David Gay said the book was a “poor choice.”

In the vote to uphold the committee recommendation and send Policy 605 back to the policy committee, only Langness was opposed.

Support came from Bresin, Rapheal, Grafft, Kieger and Gay. Member Julie Corcoran was absent on Aug. 2.

Although the result was not what Causey desired, she said she would be willing to share her input with the policy committee when it takes up the review of Policy 605.

About the book

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, “The Giver” is a soft science fiction novel written by Lowry and published in 1993. It is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopia and gradually appears more and more dystopic, so could therefore be considered anti-utopian.

The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the 12th year of his life. Jonas’ society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to “Sameness,” a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives.

Jonas is selected to inherit the position of “Receiver of Memory,” the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed. As Jonas receives the memories from his predecessor—the Giver—he discovers how shallow his community’s life has become.

Despite controversy and criticism that the book’s subject material is inappropriate for young children, “The Giver” won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 5.3 million copies.

In the United States and Canada it is a part of many middle school reading lists, but it is also on many banned book lists.

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