Patron input at the USD 453 Leavenworth Board of Education Meeting was... interesting

Wendy Fevurly

Public comment starts at 12.13 with Wendy Fevurly (who was actually based). In her speech she claims she posted pictures of a book she found at Leavenworth High School on Facebook and was banned for posting “sexually explicit material” and “material depicting sexual violence.” When she posted about her concerns of pornography in school, she was doxed as fliers were put in the mailboxes of her neighbors “courtesy of LGBTQIA.”

“It got me conversing with my neighbors a lot more than what I had,” Fevurly said. “A lot of people reached out to me on Facebook. What I learned was there is a great lack of education going on here at the school board. Not only with the children but with a lot of parents.”

She presented a book called ‘The Dumbing Down of America’ which goes through policies from the 1930s to 1999. She briefly goes into the history of Core Curriculum and the input Robert Muller and Bill Gates had in its initiative. She brought up Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), funded by Gates, before being cutoff due to time.

If you search SEL online, it will say it’s “an educational method that seeks to develop self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills that are vital for school, work, and life success.” SEL’s roots can be traced back to 1994 to the nonprofit The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). The teachings have slowly been entering classrooms since and if modern life has shown us anything, it’s that it is seemingly having the opposite effects of its so-called intended purposes. SEL was really pushed before it was even proven to be effective, and with the increasing mental health issues of students, one would think that maybe someone would look into why SEL isn’t actually doing what it’s been sold to do. There has been a lot of money pushed into it, and so it will most likely continue to be pushed way past the point of far too late. Much like DARE programs, it will most likely become another mass failure pushed in government schools that leaves the next generation worse off than they otherwise would have been.

Sherry Miller

Sherry Miller spoke next, identifying herself as the high school librarian. She started by pointing out the reason for many of the past meetings was to focus on the content in the school classrooms, libraries, and school walls.

“There are people in the community and on this board who would like greater control of the content that some of these materials may contain,” Miller said. “Change in the policies will result in a lot more work for a lot more people. There are measures in place to handle challenges and in my time at this district—21 years—they’ve been largely unnecessary. Arguments for what is age appropriate, suitable for, too graphic will never be settled. Who gets too decide what’s ‘too graphic’? What’s offensive to one may not be offensive to another.”

Miller goes on to use The Bible as a book that could be taken out of schools if parents want to go down the path of putting books into “far greater scrutiny.” However, to her credit, she did say she would never support the banning of that book just as she wouldn’t support the banning of any other book.

So, Miller starts off saying that the people who fund the content of the government school want more control over that content which means the people whose paychecks are made up by taxpayers would have to work more for those taxpayers…. Neat. I do give her props when she says “What’s offensive to one may not be offensive to another” as that is typically a conservative talking point. However, the reality is the left, at least in recent years, has overwhelmingly been the deciding factor of what is ‘too graphic’ and ‘offensive.’ In 2020, Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, Kansas removed “Of Mice and Men,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” from class study, claiming it was part of their “commitment to eliminate racial discrimination.” So, is the argument really “who gets to decide?” or is it “I don’t like that this group of people is trying to take part in this decision making”?

As someone who is gay, I will say, I don’t really care if Sarah has two mommies in the story. However, I do care if Sarah is forced to give Dean a blowjob at any point in the story. The reality is, as someone who has gone through and seen books like that, they are objectively sexual in nature and not appropriate for children—some of them even being graphic novels, having pictures of the pornographic deeds drawn out. Do you know who else gives children cartoon pornography? Child sex offenders, because it makes children think about sex at an earlier age and makes it easier to offend against them.

Miller also uses the word “ban” despite that not being true. The books aren’t being banned, any parent can still buy the book at bookstores or online if they really want their child to read them. The government would not be providing sexually explicit content to children on the taxpayer’s dime, a little different than religious texts, of which I think all religious texts should be provided.

Brandi Bond

A parent in the district for 18 years, and a library aid at David Brewer Elementary School, Brandi Bond spoke next in support of LGBTQ+ books in school.

“I agree that we should absolutely have a collection development policy, but it should be something that is created with the library staff,” Bond said. “Especially our two certified librarians who have degrees and are the subject matter experts. A policy that would benefit and represent all of our pioneering families. Not one that would exclude a large number of them. It seems some board members are confusing sexualization with representation. To remove books with LGBTQ content out of any library is a direct slap in the face to our LGBTQ families with an exclusive move to create even more divide in our politically charged climate.”

Bond goes onto claim that removing books with LGBTQ people from libraries is removing your support for LGBTQ people from being represented and that they’re “less valuable.” She also goes onto ask how they would feel if they removed books with heterosexual people in them.

Bond says a lot of things that are reoccurring themes with a lot of the other speakers, so I’m just going to break it down this once. As an adult, I’ve learned that certificates and degrees don’t really mean anything. All they really say is that you probably paid a pretty penny to do something to get a piece of paper that says you did that thing regardless of how much information you actually retained. In the past three years the whole idea of “trust the experts” kind of went out the window as it’s been revealed more and more that a lot of “experts” either don’t know what they are doing, or actively cover things up for their own benefit. So, if you want “experts” involved, fine, but also allow just as many parents who pay those “experts” with their tax dollars to be involved as well.

As for the claim that removing LGBTQ content is a “direct slap in the face” to LGBTQ families, it seems she’s ignoring the words of the majority of people who are concerned about the content of the books for her own talking point. Most people who have raised concerns are not just saying, “LGBTQ” they’re saying “sexually explicit.” Are there people who want to get rid of any and all books that even reference a gay couple? Absolutely, and I’m not here to support that. However, this conversation is deeper than, is this book “LGBTQ” or not. If there is a sexually explicit book about a heterosexual couple, I will absolutely support getting that out of a government school, and I’m going to guess that those who are raising the concern about sexually explicit books would do the same. And again, since the government not providing sexually explicit content isn’t actually a ban, parents can go get the content for their kids with their own money on their own time, instead of fighting to force it on other people’s kids through the use of government schools.

Conclusion

There were a few other unhinged people who spoke as well as a couple other based people. However, there is one big thing that I want to point out as it did get brought up by Eric Price, a parent of a student at the high school. He wanted to know why “the policy in place since 2009 is suddenly not adequate.” The reason is pretty simple. The subject matter in children’s books today is way more explicit than it was in 2009, way more frequently. There have always been books that have been challenged for their content, but it’s becoming more frequent, because more books that are supposed to be for children are being published with sexually explicit content. In fact, this is so much so, young adult (YA) literature, which was originally meant to be consumed by teens, is now being written for and consumed by adults. In fact, a 2012 survey found that adults made up 55 percent of the people buying YA fiction. Furthermore, 78 percent admitted they were buying for themselves, not for others, with the largest age group buying the books being those 30 to 44 years old, despite YA fiction being for those 12 to 17 years old. It’s fine to read whatever you want, however, the genre that was meant for teens is now being written for adults, including adult subject matter. The only thing that has stayed the same is how easy it is to read, which should really say something about our education system if we’re now reading dumbed down versions of what should be adult books.