This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
The Prince William County School Board has upheld a recommendation by the superintendent and division-level committee that the book “A Court of Thorns and Roses” remain in circulation for high school students, denying a petitioner’s request to remove the book.
A county parent, Chris Funderburg, filed a request for reconsideration of instructional resource in September 2023, seeking to withdraw the novel from circulation.
In January, the school-level committee recommended the book remain in circulation for high school students only. Funderburg appealed that decision to a central committee in February, which issued a written decision in April, upholding the school committee’s recommendation.
Funderburg then appealed the committee’s decision to Superintendent LaTanya McDade, who upheld the committee’s decision in May, after which Funderburg appealed the decision to the School Board.
The School Board ultimately voted 5-2 at its Sept. 4 meeting, the first of the school year, to uphold the superintendent and committee’s decision to keep the book in circulation at county high schools.
Board members Jennifer Wall and Erica Tredinnick voted against the motion to keep the book in circulation, and School Board Chair Dr. Babur Lateef was absent from the meeting.
Funderberg told InsideNoVa he was not surprised by how the vote went, “but it’s just one battle in a longer war.”
The book is the first book in a popular series by author Sarah J. Maas; the subsequent books in the series are listed on the school division’s sexually explicit content list.
Wall, the Gainesville representative on the School Board, said in preparing for making this decision she did her “due diligence,” reading reviews of the book and portions of the text.
“From what I’ve learned of the book and the series, the content of the subsequent book in the series, I do not feel that it’s appropriate for children,” Wall said. “There are many books that are not in our school libraries for various reasons, including appropriateness for children. And I think this book, I cannot support this book in our libraries, and I think it should be taken out of circulation.”
New policies this year
This school year, parents and guardians have the ability to designate specific student-selected library materials they wish to restrict access for their student.
The school division contracts with Follett School Solutions to manage its library resources. This year, through the Follett services, parents can log in to their account and add books they don’t want their children to be able to check out from their school library.
The restrictions will apply to all formats of the restricted material circulated within the library. Any restrictions parents make will remain for the student until the parent updates the account.
Restrictions must be identified by the parent or guardian and applied individually to each student, if a parent has multiple students in the school system.
While School Board members were generally supportive of the change, Tredinnick told the school division that, as a parent of two students in the division, she has not yet received notification to use the new system, and several parents she spoke to also had not received any communications about the new setup.
Associate Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Stephanie Soliven said there have been some communications put out regarding the new system, but the division will make an effort to put out further communication to parents.
“We will certainly do another round of communication and make sure. We want parents using this, we want visibility into it, and so we will certainly amplify our efforts in that,” Soliven said.
With the new system, parents will need to type in the specific title in order to block it. This would require parents to have read or already know each book that might contain material they don’t want their student reading, a task Tredinnick said is too time-restrictive for most parents.
Instead, Tredinnick suggested using the method neighboring Fauquier County implements.
“They give the title of the book to the parents. When they check out, it goes into their things. You can see which book your child has checked out, whether it’s a book that you deem appropriate or not, you can see the title,” Tredinnick said.
Rather than parents having to already know the titles of books they don’t want their children reading, they could be told what books their child checks out and then determine whether they find it appropriate.
“I know that we could have a way to make this system work, where you tell us what our kids have checked out, and then we can look it up,” Tredinnick said.
The platform the division uses does have that capability, however, it is not in the specific module the division bought, Soliven said. Soliven said she’d speak with Superintendent McDade about Tredinnick’s feedback.
While Funderberg told InsideNoVa he thought the new system is a “step in the right direction,” he agreed with Tredinnick’s suggestion.
“Just send an email home. I know what grades my kids get, I know what they’re working on in class, when they have tests,” Funderberg said. “Just sending an email home and said, ‘Hey, your child checked out this book’ would be a godsend for both the librarians and the parents. We can just quickly look it up, get a synopsis. Is this OK for my child or not?”
