75 more books banned from Hanover County Schools

HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WWBT) - Many Hanover County parents and teachers are outraged after the school board released a new list of books they’re banning.

The school board added 75 titles to the list of books that must be removed from the shelves by Dec. 22.

Some say it’s a major overstep, while the school division says it is defending itself.

Some of the books include:

• Forever by Judy Blume
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Wicked by Gregory Macguire
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

“Many of the protagonists in the stories are people of color, queer individuals, members of the LGBTQ community, and girls. Those are the stories that are being silenced, and it’s just it’s depressing,” parent Amanda Kronenberg said.

This latest move comes after the Hanover County School Board voted in June to adopt a new policy allowing residents to file challenges to remove books with sexually explicit material rather than allowing educators to assess the content of the libraries adequately.

Under the new policy, the school board has the sole discretion to remove books.

Parents like Kronenberg say many families, students, and teachers feel voiceless and frustrated as their school board is appointed rather than elected.

“To eliminate stories of people who have been marginalized historically is awful but fairly on brand for Hanover,” Kronenberg said.

HCPS sent a statement:

Policy is set by the School Board. School division administration is tasked with implementing these policies, including Policy 6-5.2. As part of the implementation of this policy, which can be found on BoardDocs, a group consisting of teachers, principals, librarians from across HCPS, and School Board Office administrators reviewed a specific list of books provided by the School Board against the approved policy. This work produced the attached list of books that the review group deemed to meet the School Board’s criteria for being sexually explicit, which is outlined in policy and the Code of Virginia. The list of 75 books denoted for deselection was shared with principals by the administration on Friday, Nov. 17. We anticipate the deselection of these books from our school libraries will be completed by Dec. 22 (prior to Winter Break).

Please note that School Board Policy 6-5.2 allows for a teacher/librarian and principal to submit a request for a waiver to the School Board’s Library Materials Committee should they wish to retain the materials in furtherance of specific pedagogical goals, believing those materials to be educationally suitable and age-appropriate for the intended audience.

But sources tell NBC12 that is not an accurate depiction of what actually happened.

“Teachers are really afraid to talk out about it,” Kronenberg said. “They basically can’t speak publicly for fear of reprisals.”

Those teachers anonymously spoke with NBC12 off camera, saying librarians were not allowed to provide thoughtful discourse.

Instead, they say they could only choose “yes or no” when asked if a book contained sexually explicit material and were told the process was mandatory.

Teachers can submit a waiver to use a banned book for educational purposes, but it requires a lengthy approval process, going through the principal, library materials committee, and the school board.