COBB COUNTY, Ga. — With a new school year underway, the Cobb County district has removed more than a dozen books from media centers that were deemed inappropriate.
This comes as an update to the district's ongoing book review process to remove and not provide materials in media centers that are determined to have lewd, vulgar or sexually explicit content, according to a release.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said during a board work session this month that as part of the process, 13 additional books were removed because of sexually graphic or explicit language, illustrations or situations inappropriate for children.
The 13 books are:
- Laid
- Crank
- Tricks
- Push
- Milk and Honey
- It Starts with Us
- The Infinite Moment of Us
- Casual Vacancy
- Identical
- Boys Aren't Blue
- Juliet Takes a Breath
- Monday's Not Coming
- City of Thieves
These join seven other books previously removed and no longer accessible in any Cobb County school. The previous books are:
- Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl
- Flamer
- Blankets
- It Ends with Us
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
- Lucky
- Thirteen Reasons Why
So far, 20 books have been removed from media centers. Superintendent Ragsdale said the decision did not come lightly and that it was a "surgical process." He said these are 20 books out of over 1 million in the District's media centers.
"We are declining to provide access to materials with sexually explicit content in the same way we decline to provide access to rated-R movies and, in compliance with federal law, use internet filters to prevent students from accessing websites with adult content on school district computers," Ragsdale stated.
The superintendent went on to say during the board meeting that they are not judging whether the books have literary merit and that parents can decide if and when their children are allowed to consume the content in their homes.
"There are many rated R movies that are award-winning films; however, it would be inappropriate to provide children with unrestricted access to them in a public school," Ragsdale said.
The removal of these books has prompted previous controversy in the district. Critics of book removals have cast the concept as "book bans" that hinder academic freedom and censor certain ideas.
Jeff Hubbard with the Cobb County Association of Educators previously told 11Alive that media specialists and teachers were "scared" to run afoul of district and state content standards. In addition, teacher Katie Rinderle was fired for reading "My Shadow is Purple" in her Cobb County fifth grade class under Georgia's "divisive concepts" education law passed in 2022. Her firing was later upheld by the state Board of Education.
“Our teachers are scared. Our media specialists are scared," Hubbard previously told 11Alive. "They’re literally throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of books and supplemental materials from their classroom because if just one parent comes up with a complaint – they can be in danger of losing their jobs."
Superintendent Ragsdale has stated that they will continue to keep the board and parents apprised of decisions made regarding any other books.