Category | Arts & Living

Cobb Co. schools keep books on shelves, parents involved

Published on September 23, 2008 by The Sentinel

    Cobb County schools have policies and procedures in place, ready for response anytime there is a complaint about a book.

     This system stems from public schools teaching elementary, middle and high school levels being even more affected by the issues of controversial books than the college arena.

    Parents are directly involved with education in K-12, and this makes the public education a trickier ground to navigate, in terms of what to offer students in libraries and media centers, and what to allow to be taught in classrooms.

    “We have a selection policy that’s part of our school board administration rules,” said Andy Spinks, supervisor of library media education in the Cobb County school district. “We want to make the most amount of information available to [students], at the same time being cognizant of age level.”

    There is a distinction between literature that is offered in the library and literature that is required reading, and parents can be involved in both realms. “Policy kicks in when a parent says this is not appropriate for any child,” said Spinks.

    County schools do want parents to be involved in their child’s education; a system of notices can even be set up, so that when a child checks out a book, the parent is notified of the selection.

    “Cobb County is very large and very diverse, and families do have say in the matter,” he said. The policy as it stands now, however, “protects from outside groups, or anyone with a political agenda.”

    Public schools in Cobb County do not maintain a list of “banned books,” as some other counties in Georgia do.

    “Our challenge and our goal,” said Spinks, “is to balance the necessity of age-appropriate material and on the other hand protecting academic freedom.”