Georgia mom Katie Allen is concerned about the reading materials that her children have access to at their public schools.
It began when her daughter brought home a book called “Drama” by Raina Telgemeier, a popular children’s author, the Augusta Chronicle reports. Allen, of Harlem, Georgia, said the book includes sexually graphic material and “overtly homosexual themes.”
But that is just the tip of the iceberg, she said.
Allen and other concerned parents of Columbia County school children are beginning to wonder how many inappropriate books their children have access to in their school libraries.
For example, Allen said a new children’s book called “What’s an Abortion Anyway” is scheduled to be published Sept. 1, and it explicitly promotes abortion to young children. Its authors plan to donate hundreds of copies to libraries across the country, and their stated goal is to create a society where “abortion is normalized as another outcome of pregnancy, just like miscarriage and birth.”
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“Will Columbia County be ordering this book as part of their quest for a ‘diverse’ and ‘global’ education?” Allen asked, according to the Chronicle. “Because you see, when school boards use words like ‘diverse’ to justify content exempt from parental purview, the sky becomes the limit for what we can expect to find in our schools.”
Allen began a petition asking the Columbia County Board of Education to remove books that promote “homosexuality, general sexuality and transgender ideology” from school libraries or at least notify parents that their children have access to them. The petition has more than 70 signatures.
In June, she spoke to the school board about her concerns, and afterward she received a letter from superintendent Dr. Steven Flynt, according to the report.
Flynt told her that parents have the option to opt out their child from those books if they contact their child’s school. He also said the school district will consider her suggestions during its annual review of school policies, the report states.
“The mission of the Columbia County School District is to empower and inspire all learners to excel in a global society,” Flynt wrote to Allen. “To that end, we seek to provide our students with the best education possible in a safe, positive environment.”
Allen said she was “very disappointed” by the school district’s response, and she will not give up the fight.
Many parents are speaking out against school sex education programs and other materials that they believe encourage risky sexual behavior in younger and younger children.
Earlier this summer, parents in Tacoma, Washington were outraged after their middle school students received a Planned Parenthood flyer that promoted sex to 11-year-olds and told them that they could get an abortion without a parent’s knowledge.
Others expressed outrage after they found out that Chicago Public Schools plan to give free condoms to children as young as 10 starting in the fall.
