Some board members have been asked for feedback on their thought process for supporting the book.  One has replied.

The simple question asked: “Could you explain why you voted to expose minors to this book without supporting parents with informed consent?  Thanks for helping us understand your thinking.”

SUMMARY OF THE RESPONSE:
1) It suggests that if you have not read a book cover to cover (like they did), then a complaint is not legitimate/to be respected.

2) It suggests that since only 2 people have complained, that the complaint carries little weight.

3) They chose to expose (minors) to that book (without informed parental consent) so the book can teach kids that they can endure tough situations and survive.  They said that they voted for kids at ENSC who can relate.
>> words in parenthesis are not from the board member, but are added to emphasize the reality of the decision

The board member never really answered the question as to why they would not vote in a way that would give parents informed consent. These 3 talking points have also been expressed by other board members during other book reviews in the past.  

So let’s consider the validity of these 3 points….

1. Not legitimate/respected to complain if you have not personally read a book cover to cover.
   • It is simply unreasonable to expect each individual busy parent to read every obscene book cover to cover before they may place a complaint that will be respected by EN staff, administrators and board members. Is EN trying to make it deliberately hard for parents, and deliberately profitable for obscene book authors and publishers?
   • There are perfectly reputable sources of honest and accurate assessments of books available which can and should be leveraged to make decisions. 
     • Insisting on solving math problems manually, without a calculator, can be unnecessarily cumbersome—much like expecting someone to read an entire book cover to cover before they may have legitimate concerns about it. Both scenarios highlight the importance of leveraging available tools and information for efficiency.
   • It should not matter how much or what type of obscene content a book contains, or how virtuous the rest of the book is, parents should have the right to informed consent before their minor children are exposed to it.
   • Not all board members have committed to reading every book before they cast their vote.  They understand how unreasonable the ask is.
     
2. Not to be taken seriously if only a few parents complain.
   • It is not reasonable to expect a large number of busy parents to place complaints.  If this is the litmus test then we might as well throw out the entire complaint process.  Few parents have the time to follow the process, and fewer yet have the time to be shamed to read a book cover to cover.
     
3. The book teaches kids how to endure similar adversity.
   • In other words, it is perfectly fine to get into precise intimate graphical detail about rape in an education setting, without the informed consent of parents, because it is for the greater good of the kids, and apparently there are no other more effective and appropriate means to teach or counsel them?  

Let’s reflect a moment on what would likely happen if you took the feedback above and expressed to a school board member or the superintendent that you heard that they don’t provide parents with informed consent. They have taken such criticism before and responded as follows…

The Superintendent has been quick & excited to say that every parent has the right to call into the school and ask that their student be denied access to a book.  Such comments sound good until you really think carefully about what it means.  In reality it would require each parent to know every obscene book that exists at the school before their student is exposed to it, and this list changes over time! In real-life, parents have often not known that a book is available until after their student was exposed to it.  Also, consider that the school does help to serve the parents by listing the books with an obscenity index like even Netflix has to do.   Frankly, after they have had feedback and time to think about how this process is so parent-unfriendly, it’s reasonable to ask why our elected board members still think it’s ok?

By now you want to know what book this is about, and what is contained in the book that is obscene.   The name of the book is “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard. It is about Jaycee Lee Dugard’s autobiography surrounding the time of her abduction and torture being held as a sex slave while a young girl. It contains graphic descriptions about sexual activities involving child molestation, rape, and references to beastiality; sexual nudity; violence; and drug abuse

The mom who submitted the complaint and appeal deliberately prioritized it high on her list to address because of the information available about it, including 5 out of 5 ratings for obscenity.

Here are several excerpts from the book review on BookLooks.org :

• “…He forces my legs open and inserts the hard thing between his legs in me. It feels like I am being stretched apart. I feel like it’s going to come out of my belly. “
  
• “I am bleeding “down there.” …He says it’s okay—he just “popped my cherry.”
  
• “He says the crank allows him to focus on one thing for a long time. He says first he’s going to get me dressed the way he wants and then depending on his mood, the rest will consist of me masturbating him, sucking his penis, me in whatever position he desires, and dancing over him while he masturbates”
  
• “He wants me to shave my vagina because he doesn’t like hair because it gives him a rash”
  
• “I have to touch his penis and stroke it up and down; he calls this “jacking off.” Sometimes he wants me to suck on it, too. I hate it so much; it tastes disgusting. I am afraid the white stuff which he said is called cum will get in my mouth. I think this is really gross.”
  
• “He says the speed helps him to prolong the sex so he won’t cum for a while.”
  
• “They look like photo albums, but they have kids from magazines cut out in different positions with penises taped on from other magazines.”
  
• “He fucks me as hard as he can it seems like. He uses that word a lot. My head is being pushed in between the couch and the pullout bed. I feel like I can’t breathe. He is calling me a fucking whore and a cunt and other things.”

Is it East Noble’s job to teach K-12 students these sexual vocabulary words, word-pictures and how-to lessons?

• A hard thing, stretching and how it feels in your belly
• Popping a cherry
• Sucking penis
• Shaving your genitals
• Stroking & jacking off
• Cum and how it tastes
• How to prolong sex

While I empathize for what the young lady went through (three decades ago)…

• It remains unreasonable to justify this in a public educational setting as necessary, appropriate and good.   
• It is intellectually dishonest, at best, to consider it to be ok only because 99% of the rest of a book has no obscenity, or the story is just that moving.
  • Even if every remaining page of this book has “I love Jesus” on it, there is still no legitimate reason why parents should not at least be given informed consent before allowing their child to read this sexual content.
• It lacks wisdom & experience to say that students should have unmanaged access to read this in order to truly relate and overcome their own experiences (the board member’s main justification). 
  • I have spoken to parents who have been through sexual abuse.  None of them think this book is necessary to teach kids how to overcome it. 
  • Respected mental health and sexual abuse professionals would not recommend that kids be handed a book to go read to re-live their traumatic experience as a means to good counseling.
  • Just how many EN students are we talking about here who have been sexually abused anyway? Such an exception doesn’t come close to justify exposing everyone else to this content!

Before the narrative returns again to “book bans” and “censorship”, let’s be clear about what we stand for.

1. Respect for individual parental rights -To be granted “default opt out” as a policy – which effectively means informed consent before books that contain obscenities are exposed to our students
2. A focus on academics – free from sexualization

See our GOALS page for more information on what we stand for before listening to our detractors.

We do not wish to ban or censor books.  We wish to do what has always been done in the history of public education:  govern to what is appropriate, necessary, kind and good.  If a parent desires their student to read filth, they can opt in or they can find it at the public library or at Amazon.   It’s available at Walmart for $4.62 (as of April 2024).  

Please give the rest of the busy parents Default Opt-Out (informed consent) and rebuild the lost trust in East Noble School Corporation.  This will go a long way to bring peace back to the EN community.