Milan School Board Listens to Age-Inappropriate Books in their School Library. Ludington Next?

[XLFD]

Parents and concerned community members in Milan, Michigan, a city nearly the size of Manistee, spoke out at the December 21, 2022 school board meeting about four books that were being allowed in the library at their school.  The mom whose comment is shown below notes the non-transparency and anonymity of a committee used to choose books appropriate for the district's kids, before beginning to read an excerpt from them.  At the end a board member makes her permissive views known before she is disrupted and the board adjourns for a while.

Once order was restored, another mother came up and continued reading the obvious age-inappropriate book detailing sexual behaviors that sound out of place in a conservative small town school.  Once again, a board member tries to suggest it is appropriate before once again the meeting is adjourned so that order can be restored:

Not that long ago, if anybody peddled books that glamorized prostitution and sexual acts in graphic detail to your children, they would face some serious prosecution; nowadays this garbage is being pushed on your children by school staff and the elite boards who believe they are somehow doing your children and society a favor in offering this at their school.  This is not only happening in this small town in Michigan, or in Dearborn due east from Milan, which has had pushback from their Muslim and Christian communities.  

It's happening also in Mason County, at a school with a board that promotes and encourages shooting from the back of moving ATVs on elementary school grounds.  Who knew they would promote and encourage reading pornography at their libraries too?   Enjoy winter break!

[Dave]

If they are going to allow this sort of material to be available to students, might as well have issues of Hustler, Playboy and other stuff on the shelves

[XLFD]

It would have to be back issues of Playboy, they haven't published their magazine since 2020, where it had grew rather tame, maybe about as racy as Maxim or GQ as far as pictorials.  Apparently, keeping a classical liberal stance and putting masks on model faces and putting plexiglass shields between them and the photographers made it more difficult to survive in Covid-19 times.  As Willy notes, the internet has been hard on everything in print media.

[Willy]

You have to give the school board credit for letting the ladies read what is in those books. The empty seats show the lack of interest by parents and the public. My understanding is that these books are in the high schools and not grade school or middle school. I would guess that most of the students have smart phones and can access, at anytime, material much more provocative than what was read at the meeting. I doubt that any of the students will read these books but will by pass them and go right for the porn on their phones instead. Parents give their kids the phones with little or no monitoring I would guess. The real problem regarding these books is the lack of control parents have over what is placed in the school and what is being taught, so, I guess they can start with removing the books because it is the parents who have the final word, in my opinion, then take away their kids access to internet porn. The major problem is keeping this stuff away from the young. By the time they reach high school, the damage has already been done.

[XLFD]

You are correct, Willy that these Milan books were found in the upper grades of the school, not below the 6th grade; I originally put 'elementary' in the first paragraph, but the first lady said these were for the high school.  The full video of the meeting shows three other people reading passages that grew even more spicy.  

The video excerpts makes one think that the board immediately responded to the parents, but that didn't happen until after the comment period, so hopefully that didn't mislead others into thinking they took a couple of breaks following the immediate responses of board members.  Anybody who goes to LCC or LASD meetings knows the board never immediately responds to the public comment unless it benefits themselves.

I fully respect any parent that has adult filters on their phones and other tech for their kids and note the filters in school-provided devices have traditionally been effective.  Kids are clever and it's not too difficult to find some deviant stuff, but we shouldn't be expecting school libraries to stock books that glorify and promote grooming and underage prostitution as these do.