ATHABASCA – Aspen View Public School (AVPS) parents will have the opportunity to weigh in on what types of content should be available for students after the province announced a public survey on age-appropriate content in school libraries last week.
In a May 26 release, the province’s Minister of Education and Childcare, Demetrios Nicolaides, said he was concerned with that books depicting explicit sexual acts were available in school libraries.
“We are going to do something about this serious issue by consulting Albertans and creating standards to ensure students do not have access to age-inappropriate materials in school libraries,” he said.
There is no set provincial standard for what students can access from their school libraries, so a book found in a library at Calgary public school might not be available at Edwin Parr Composite School, or vice versa.
AVPS board chair Candy Nikipelo said the board hadn’t heard of any complaints of inappropriate materials but Supt. Constantine Kastrinos had told schools to start reviewing library books in advance.
“They’re to be looking at making sure that materials are age appropriate, sexually appropriate, inclusive, and respectful,” said Nikipelo.
Nicolaides encouraged Albertans to provide their input through a survey, which can be accessed here. Questions include, “what should appropriate sexual content mean in the context of the new standard,” and, “at what age should school children be able to access materials with sexually explicit content in school libraries.”
While school divisions weren’t given advance notice of the upcoming changes, Aspen View trustee and Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta president Dennis MacNeil was quoted in the release saying, “While this is a contentious issue, we are pleased the government is consulting with Albertans prior to deciding any course of action.”
Nikipelo said the board would be trusting the school staff and administrators to use their best professional judgement in the interim instead of trying to get involved themselves.
“We can all imagine what would be inappropriate material in a school library, I can certainly think of inappropriate content that I don’t think our libraries should be holding, but we’ve never really tackled this before.”
Flagged materials
In the release, the province included excerpts from four pieces of media it had found in school libraries; the release includes the names, authors, where the books were found, and what themes they contain, alongside graphic excerpts, but don’t include any other context about the works.
Gender Queer, a 2019 graphic novel memoir written by Maia Kobabe, explores themes of gender identity as the author examines their own journey from adolescence to adulthood, and the flagged sections include references to masturbation, queer and straight pornography, and sex toys.
Fun Home, a 2006 graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, chronicles her own childhood in the rural US, and includes themes of sexual orientation, gender roles, suicide, and emotional abuse. The flagged excerpts include references to female puberty, suicide, and slurs.
Blankets, an autobiographical comic book by Craig Thompson, was the Times Magazine #1 comic of the year in 2003, and follows a young Craig as he grows up in an Evangelical Christian household. The flagged sections include racism, references to sexual activity, and slurs.
Flamer, a 2020 semi-autobiographical graphic novel by Mike Curato, set in a 1995 Boy Scouts summer camp. The flagged sections include heavy homophobic language, including multiple slurs, and include references to queer sex acts.
The new restrictions, which the province plans to have in place by the new school year in September, don’t impact municipal or public libraries, or school libraries that are run by a library board but housed in a school, such as the one in Rochester.
All four books flagged by the province are available at the Alice B. Donahue Library and Archives.
