School to hold hearing on parent request to ban book’s use | Online Athens

The Clarke County Board of a Education will hold a formal hearing Monday on whether a book should be removed from a middle school class reading list.

Chad and Beth Lowery, whose daughter attends Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School, wants the board to order school administrators to stop classroom use of “And the Earth Did Not Devour Him” by Tomas Rivera. They have not asked that the book, considered a classic of Chicano literature, be removed from the school’s library.

A paragraph in the book describing an old man’s angry outburst contains language unsuitable for 12-year-old readers, the couple say.

Superintendent Philip Lanoue declined to order the removal when the Lowerys first made their request last spring, but offered to allow parents to opt out of letting their children read the book. The couple appealed his decision to the Clarke County Board of Education.

School board members voted 5-2 to send the request back to Lanoue for reconsideration, but Lanoue did not change his mind.

via School to hold hearing on parent request to ban book’s use | Online Athens.