Lodi Unified School District’s new opt-out policy hasn’t quelled a controversy about access to books parents don’t want their children to read.
Mistaken votes by an opaque advisory committee in June about three specific books spurred accusations of book banning, but Schools Superintendent Neil Young later said they overstepped their authority.
Book advocates say they will address student access and district procedure again at the July 16 school board meeting.
“There is this opt out, okay, but that still doesn’t go back to solving the issue about the board rule and this challenge committee,” said Lisa Lennon Wilkins, who heads the district’s teachers union.
For the upcoming school year, district officials had already determined that parents would be able to elect whether or not their children have access to “young adult (14+) and adult level books that may contain mature topics, graphic violence, vulgar language, and/or sexual content.”
Tensions came to a head publicly in June after the district convened the advisory committee to review 10 books, including “Push” by Sapphire, “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, and “This is Kind of an Epic Love Story” by Kacen Callender. The seven-member committee included teachers, administrators, and parents, including one who had filed a formal complaint against “This is Kind of an Epic Love Story.”
According to district records requested by Stocktonia, the committee took three votes in the hours-long June 4 meeting, electing unanimously to keep available “Speak,” 6–1 to remove “Push”, and deadlocking 3–3 on “This is Kind of an Epic Love Story.” Some community members told the school board, meeting later that night, that it seemed the district had banned the books.
“Push,” released in 1999, follows Precious Jones, an illiterate African American girl living in Harlem who is sexually and physically abused by her parents. The book was also adapted into the 2009 movie “Precious.” In recent years, it has been targeted by school districts for its sexual content; a 2023 analysis by the free speech organization PEN America found that it was one of the most banned books in the country.
The district received at least 20 formal complaints regarding “Push” in February and March, with many objecting to the book’s sexual content or raising concerns about morality and family values using similar wording, according to copies obtained by Stocktonia. Only district staff, residents, or parents may file formal complaints.
“Supporting immoral lifestyles for the young is unconscionable,” several complaints read. “Explicit sexual activities + lifestyles break down the family and culture.”
“The downfall of our civilization has no place in our schools,” another complainant wrote about the book.
“Speak” and “This is Kind of an Epic Love Story,” which discuss sexual assault and LGBTQ+ youth, have also been challenged and banned in other school districts.
Complaints against all three books received by the district included attachments from BookLooks.org, a book-rating website whose reviews have been widely used in attempts to ban titles, a USA Today investigation found last year. The website has come under scrutiny for its ties to the organization Moms for Liberty, although BookLooks.org says it is not affiliated with any groups.
On June 10, nearly a week after the committee’s meeting, Young, the superintendent, wrote in a message to community members that the committee had no decision-making power, and that the votes had been taken in error. He then announced the district’s new opt-out policy, which had been decided prior to the review committee meeting.
Young told Stocktonia that district librarians would be responsible for determining which books fell under the policy, and added that the feedback he’s heard from parents has so far been positive.
“What I am hearing from multiple families is that … they feel as though that is a great opportunity for each family to be responsible for their own family, and not another family’s children,” he said.
But the new policy hasn’t closed the issue for some. Although he doesn’t have children in the district, David Diskin is a Lodi resident working with parents and staff to push for clarification of district policies around the review committee.
“There was no open call, there was no nomination process. It certainly wasn’t public,” Diskin said of the committee’s formation.
Young said that Associate Superintendent Robert Sahli made the decision to convene the committee and selected the members. Sahli, who retired from the district at the end of the school year, did not respond to requests for comment.
The committee consists of middle school teachers Laurie Johnson and Madeline Mettler, instructional coach Sean Campbell, principals Joe Ward and You Lor, and parents Esiteli Hafoka and Becky Harper. Harper filed a formal complaint against “This is Kind of an Epic Love Story” in November 2023 after the book was an option in her daughter’s ninth grade English class. She had spoken about her objections to the book at a school board meeting last summer.
Other details about the committee, which did not take minutes during its meeting, remain unclear. Young said he had “no information” on whether it would reconvene.
Diskin and others have asked the school board to consider clarifying policies for convening a review committee, voting on complaints, and deciding if and how instructional resources are removed.
Existing district rules allow the superintendent or another designated official to convene a temporary committee — composed of two teachers, two administrators, two parents, a coach, and a librarian serving in an advisory role — to review formal complaints made against books and instructional resources. Officially, the committee’s role is to determine the age and educational appropriateness of materials and their usefulness in school curriculum; it has no authority to remove books from shelves.
However, Lodi Unified overhauled the makeup of the committee last year, when it altered the role of the librarian to an advisory position and increased the number of parents and administrators. A provision for a high school student member was also removed.
The committee’s June 4 agenda included 10 books for consideration; some, like “Internment” by Samira Ahmed, discuss race and religion in America, while others like Gabby Rivera’s “Juliet Takes a Breath” deal with LGBTQ+ youth. Other titles included “A Court of Silver Flames” by Sarah J. Maas, “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins, “Looking for Alaska” by John Green, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, and “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews — all books that have been challenged or banned in other districts in the country.
A California law instituted last fall prohibits school districts from banning books that deal with race, gender, or sexual orientation, and allows the state to fine offending districts, but some districts in California have engaged with the issue.
In Elk Grove, parents engaged in heated discussion at several school board meetings last summer over LGBTQ+ books in school libraries, although no specific books were brought up. In May, the Kern County Board of Education adopted a policy allowing parents to challenge the appropriateness of books; community members there too accused them of banning books. Fresno County for public libraries recently established a committee to adopt standards that advocates say could disproportionately target books discussing topics like gender identity.
Miriam Waldvogel is serving a summer internship with Stocktonia. She attends Princeton University and is a Stockton native.