Update: Teton County School District will not be moving forward with the proposed consent forms. A win for the Kids’ Right to Read Project!
In response to the controversy over Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya in the Teton County School District, the school board has proposed to require parents to sign written consent forms for assigned books and to offer alternative reading assignments to any students whose parent objects to a book.
NCAC and other free speech organizations wrote to the school board in order to raise concerns over the proposal and to iterate to board members that the policy, if adopted, will “undermine the education of students and compromise important constitutional principles.”
KRRP objects to the proposal because parental control over the curriculum would put “students at a distinct disadvantage if it fails to introduce them to the range of ideas that they will encounter in college and in life.” The policy is also legally unsound because “there is no case law giving parents a right to direct the education of their children in public schools because individual parents could give conflicting direction to the public school.”
The Kids Right to Read Project (KRRP) of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) sent the below letter to the Teton County School Board strongly advising against the adoption of the current proposal.
For more information, read the press release.