In recent years, book bans nationwide have soared, affecting thousands of schools. In Aug. 2024, at a school board meeting, the Francis Howell School District approved a proposal allowing the district to ban inappropriate books from entering its libraries. Upon a request for removal, any book containing elements like explicit content or alcohol and drug use must be taken off the shelves. That banned book must gain the school board’s approval again to be added back. Since then, the district has not banned a single book. While the policies have not been directly enforced yet, they remain in effect. In spite of the lack of enforcement, these policies still impact educators. For example, teachers must apprehensively approach the process of bringing material outside of their classes’ curriculum into their classrooms. The same goes for the FHN Book Club.
“One of the challenges is that it makes a lot more hoops to jump through to get materials,” Ashley Siess, English teacher and FHN Book Club sponsor said. “If you want text, they have to meet all these different criteria. You have to tell the librarians. Then, the librarians put it on the list. After that, it has to go through a process with the school board, where people have an opportunity to comment.”
It is a setback for teachers who want to teach books outside of their class’ curriculum. To get a book approved by the school board is even more exhausting. The school board also evaluates the benefit- cost ratio, whether the book’s educational value warrants the effort, cost, or potential controversy of its approval. More often than not, potential controversy outweighs any educational benefits. How the district’s policies work depends on the school setting, whether the policies apply to a class with a standardized curriculum, a class where students choose their own books, or the FHN Book Club. There is much less paperwork involved for classes where students can openly pick their novels or for the FHN Book Club settling on a book, in comparison to a class that requires all the students to read the same book.
“Romeo and Juliet is in the curriculum. I don’t have to do anything for that [for regular literature classes],” Seiss said. “I can make all of my kids read it. But for something that’s not already written in and codified, I’ve been told they won’t approve it. It will not happen.”
In classes where students can choose which novels to read, the policies’ effects have not been felt as profoundly. At North, English teacher Lindsey Scheller teaches an elective class, The Novel, where students can choose their own books.
“I have not had a lot of personal issues with it. To be honest, I feel like I had more issues with when we used to do class novels.” Scheller said. “You know, [when] we would all read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.”
In Scheller’s Novel classes, the book chosen by a student can be any genre. The one main guideline is that it should be fiction. Nonfiction titles can be permitted as long as they follow the typical narrative of a fiction book.
“Kids get to choose their own books all the time,” Scheller said. “There is nothing in that class that I make the kids read.”
In the future, the policies may lead to the district’s first book ban. So far, they have acted as a deterrent for teachers looking to introduce new books into their classrooms. Still, they could become further difficult to handle as books face full removal.
“It makes me less apt to want to ask to order stuff,” Seiss said. “Because of the timeline and the headache.”
