But the review of a Judy Blume novel is the exception, say School Board members, most of whom fear a slippery slope of intrusion.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published December 4, 2003
BROOKSVILLE - The School Board narrowly and reluctantly agreed Tuesday to let the public hear a committee's deliberations of whether Deenie, a 30-year-old Judy Blume novel, belongs on county elementary school shelves.
But a majority made clear they did not want such openness to occur again.
They instructed board attorney Karen Gaffney to revise and strengthen the district's policy on challenged instructional materials to prevent the public from gaining access to future meetings of the ad hoc committees that review questioned books. The existing panel has not been scheduled to meet, and its membership might change.
The St. Petersburg Times sued the School Board in October to prevent the committee assigned to consider Deenie from meeting privately as planned. The Times won a temporary injunction against the closed meeting, forcing the district into negotiations about how to proceed.
After weeks of talks with the newspaper's lawyers, Gaffney advised the board to accept a settlement that would open the session, because the policy was "less than clear" and the district might lose if it took its fight to court.
Times lawyer George Rahdert said the newspaper simply was making sure the School Board follows the law.
"We view our work as providing a civics lesson to the School Board, something they probably have in their 10th-grade curriculum, about open government and the First Amendment," Rahdert said.
Some board members and the superintendent, though, were not keen on having all facets of government conducted in the public eye.
Vice Chairman Jim Malcolm, who provided the swing vote, contemplated joining colleagues John Druzbick and Chairwoman Sandra Nicholson to oppose the settlement as part of his "longstanding philosophy" against carte blanche openness. He grinned as he talked about creating a test case by rejecting the deal, which would "let the fun begin."
"However, I don't think our attorney is comfortable with that," Malcolm said.
He quickly offered his support for any policy update that would keep future review committees out of the sunshine, suggesting that without changes the push for openness will not end.
"This is just the beginning," Malcolm said. "If not this book, it's the next book. If not the next book, it's the next committee. If they could get into the superintendent's briefcase on her way home, they would love to."
Nicholson and Druzbick agreed with Malcolm's view that too much openness is not a good thing.
They figured that several members of the committee, as originally composed, will resign, unwilling to subject themselves to the spotlight while deciding a potentially divisive issue such as censorship. An open meeting could hinder free and honest discussion, they argued.
"These are private people unfortunately working for the public schools," Druzbick said.
Rahdert took particular exception to that position.
"It's ironic that the School Board believes that Government-in-the-Sunshine chills robust discussion about censoring books, when censorship itself is the most chilling detriment to First Amendment rights," he said.
Druzbick had another concern: that any move to open the book review committees might deter parents from coming forward with complaints. The past practice of having a committee advise the superintendent, who then brought the committee's recommendation along with her own to the board, worked fine, Druzbick contended.
Nicholson shared that viewpoint.
"I think there are some instances where matters need to be handled by committees separately," she said. "Recommendations are made to the superintendent. She will give us her recommendation based on a lot of things."
Superintendent Wendy Tellone, meanwhile, focused her comments on her desire to keep committees that report to her out of the sunshine.
Board member Gail David, by contrast, viewed the settlement as a step in the right direction. She recommended that the board open reviews of controversial books more, not less.
"I think it would be a fairly innocuous assignment," David said. "I don't think you have to go into great detail as to why you think the book is appropriate or inappropriate."
Joining her was Robert Wiggins, who said little during the board meeting but in past interviews has said the public has a right to hear what goes on at the committee reviews.
Times attorneys argued that the panel's reviews should be conducted openly because the group's recommendation would affect public policy to be settled by the School Board. The paper sued after Gaffney said in a letter to a reporter that the session did not have to take place in the open because the panel does not advise the board directly.
The issue arose after the mother of a fourth-grader attending Spring Hill Elementary School complained that Deenie contained passages about masturbation that were not appropriate for children of that age. A district-level review committee was put together after a school-based committee could not agree whether to take the book off the shelves.
