Escambia County Public Schools communications coordinator Cody Strother sent an email to the media stating that school libraries are open.
- He added, “Any reporting contrary to the above is erroneous and is an insult to our Media Specialists who have worked countless hours since last year to keep their libraries open while remaining in compliance with state law.”
What Strother wrote:
Escambia County Public Schools is legally required to be in compliance with HB 1069. In order to protect our employees and our students, ECPS school-based Media Specialists are reviewing each and every title in their media centers. This is quite an arduous and time-consuming process, as you can imagine. As a result, some titles are not immediately available to students for check-out. As our Media Specialists review and clear titles, they are being made available for check-out. When this process is complete, the Media Specialists will begin reviewing teachers’ classroom libraries. In the meantime, approved titles from the school Media Centers will be made available to teachers in their classrooms for student self-selection or leisure reading.
Escambia County Public Schools opens the 2023-24 school year on Thursday, Aug. 10. Students may find few books in their classroom libraries and limited selections in their school libraries.
Cody Strother, coordinator of communications, confirmed the school district is reviewing books in relation to House Bill 1069.
In an email, he wrote, “We intend to have at least some books ready to circulate at all of our school libraries when students return. Some of our elementary-level libraries may be able to open with access to all books from day one, but not all will be ready—but all of the elementary libraries, even those without certified media specialists at this time, should be able to open with access to some titles.”
Classroom libraries will remain closed until media specialists review the collection. Strother said media specialists will be permitted to “check out collections of already-approved titles to teachers for students to select for independent reading.”
- Inweekly and Rick’s Blog aren’t the problem here.