Ron DeSantis Book Censorship Empties School Libraries, Makes Little Kids Cry
'Please don't take my books, please don't do this.'
As part of the never-ending quest to purge Florida schools of anything that might upset a rightwing parent, teachers in at least two Florida counties have been ordered to either remove all books except approved textbooks from shelves in their classrooms, or at least to completely cover the shelves with paper so innocent children won't be corrupted by Wrongthink. And a local TV station shared video of completely bare shelves at one Jacksonville middle school, where all the books were packed up — during "literacy week!" — pending a review of whether they could be safely accessed by kids under Florida's wonderful new freedom-enhancing censorship laws.
No way the kids can be indoctrinated if there aren't any books, now is there? Here's that mind-blowing report from WJXT-TV about Duvall County Schools' decision to "err on the side of caution" by literally emptying the library.
Jacksonville parent Brian Covey, a parent and substitute teacher who tweeted the viral video of the bare shelves at Manatee Middle School, told the TV station that his kids' school, Greenland Pines Elementary, actually required kids to return books they'd checked out and "werewere in the middle of reading, and said that they can’t continue to read those books until they’ve been reviewed.”
As the Washington Post explains (gift linky), district officials in Manatee and Duval Counties
directed teachers this month to remove or wrap up their classroom libraries. [...] The removals come in response to fresh guidance issued by the Florida Department of Education in mid-January, after the State Board of Education ruled that a law restricting the books a district may possess applies not only to schoolwide libraries but to teachers’ classroom collections, too.
This is all part of the continued fallout from Florida's "curriculum transparency" law, HB 1467, which required all books in every school be age-appropriate, not porny, and "suited to student needs." The law required all books to be
approved by a qualified school media specialist, who must undergo a state retraining on book collection. The Education Department did not publish that training until January, leaving school librarians across Florida unable to order books for more than a year.
So now, thank goodness, the training is available and the media specialists can start going through every single book to make sure it's safe for Florida kids. WJXT-TV notes that teachers will first have to cross-reference their own classroom libraries against a list of state-approved books, and then have their school's media specialist review anything not on that list.
Also Too:
Florida Might Lock Up Teachers Who Expose Students To 'Unvetted' Books, With Woke Words In Them
Ask The Gay Penguins How 'Limited' Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' Law Is. YOU CAN'T THEY'RE BANNED
As Yr Wonkette noted last week, teachers have been warned that providing students with materials deemed "harmful to minors" could result in their being prosecuted for a third degree felony under Florida law, so teachers and librarians are being super careful to make sure that only completely safe materials remain in the schools. That way if there's a school shooting, none of the victims will go to Hell because they saw tiny cartoon genitals in a sex ed book.
So how are the kids enjoying their newfound safety from bad books? According to school librarian Marie Masferrer, who's on the board of the Florida Association for Media in Education and used to work in Manatee County schools, former colleagues have told her that
At one school, “the kids began crying and writing letters to the principal, saying, ‘Please don’t take my books, please don’t do this,’” Masferrer said.
Surely one day they'll understand why they needed to be protected from books.
Besides, as a spokesperson for Duval County Public Schools explained, the reviews are positively zooming along, with "almost 800 titles currently approved, and the list grows each day as books are reviewed." The safe books will eventually make it back into libraries, and teachers will eventually know which of their Satan Sex Gay Books have to be banished, and then everyone will be fine except for the occasional whiner who thinks they should be free to just read about any old gay penguins they want to.
Also, for some crazy reason we just thought of this old 1970s PSA for Radio Free Europe that suggested that the USA is a place where people can think freely, which is all well and good until the kids start reading books that might turn them gay.
Thank goodness Ron DeSantis is liberating the children of Florida from all that woke indoctrination so they can think freely for themselves, within proper limits. Even if some teachers have to be lock-her-upped.
[ WaPo (gift link) / WJXT-TV / Image: Screenshot of Twitter video by Brian Covey via WJXT-TV ]
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There was the small matter of the very public (bogus) arrests of Black people for voter fraud. I think that had something to do with subsequent turnout.
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