RINGGOLD –– No parent in Catoosa County has filed an official complaint with the school district alleging inappropriate books in schools, Superintendent Chance Nix said after members of the county GOP raised complaints at a recent school board meeting.
During the public participation period of a school board meeting last week, Catoosa County Republicans decried books allegedly found in a middle school classroom and read passages aloud from the selected titles as board members asked them to stop and young children were removed from the room.
The literature included: “The Hate U Give,” by Angie Thomas; “The Fault in Our Stars,” by John Green; “Paper Towns,” by John Green; “Turtles All the Way Down,” by John Green, and the children’s adaptation of “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds.
Before GOP members read passages containing sexual content and discussion of racism into the microphone, David Moeller, the board’s chair, referred the group to the school’s state-mandated complaint resolution process for reporting material that may be harmful to minors.
He said the board was not adversarial to the complaints made by the GOP and asked Joanna Hildreth, the party chair, if reading aloud from parts of books that may be inappropriate was truly necessary.