Maine parents band together to fight 'inappropriate' books because of 'inaction' by school district

Parents in Maine's Hermon Public Schools District banded together to create a sample book policy that would help sort out material that is deemed inappropriate. 

This coalition of parents formed after numerous attempts urging the school board to take action failed.

Fox News Digital spoke with Regina Leonard on Tuesday, one of the parents spearheading the collective effort to press Hermon Public Schools District to revise its standards on books.

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Leonard said they were made aware of "some questionable material" over a year ago that was in other local schools. A group of parents started looking to actually prove that it wasn't in their school district, however, they were surprised by the results. 

"We couldn't believe it could be in Hermon. And we quickly discovered that it was here. And so we had a book appeal come up and that came up this past September. And then they did not take the book out," Leonard, who has a 7th grader at Hermon Middle School, said.

Leonard had a heated exchange with school board members at a meeting in December over what she claimed was a lack of action toward the issue. Leonard blasted the board, claiming that parents’ requests for a book removal system were being ignored.

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Leonard told the school district parents created a "sample policy" to help determine what is inappropriate for minors that could be implemented. However, she claimed that the sample policy was ignored at the last meeting.

That meeting ended abruptly when Hermon School Board Chair Kristen Quinn Shorey realized a parent had been video recording the meeting.

The sample policy created by the parents outlines a "purpose" to "avoid inappropriate material" and then proceeds to detail how that could be implemented.

"And the first reading of the policy was last month, and this meeting on the ninth is the second reading, and we're asking them to table it and put it back in committee to add this rating system (sample policy)," Leonard said.

Per a press release released by Leonard on Monday, a group of parents in Hermon School District claim that they found over 83 books that contain "erotic content, explicit descriptions of sexual assault including child rape, sexual abuse, explicit sexual activities, prostitution involving minors, and/or bestiality commentary" after they reviewed the Hermon School Library System catalog last month.

"Parents can block sexually explicit content on streaming media, yet parents do not have the ability to prevent their children from viewing sexually explicit erotic material in the Hermon schools," the press release stated. "We are asking the Hermon School Department Committee to implement age-appropriate standards regarding sexual content for minors."

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Among the books that sparked concern is "Sold," which tells a story of a girl from Nepal who is sold into sexual slavery in India.

The parents state that this book contains explicit aberrant sexual activities, including rape of a minor; prostitution; and explicit violence.

Another book that the parents highlight is called "Tricks," a young adult novel that tells the stories of five troubled teenagers who fall into prostitution during the quest for "freedom, safety, community, family, and love," according to a description of the book on Amazon.

The parents claim that the "book contains explicit sexual activities including child rape and abuse; drug abuse; violence; alcohol use; and adult and child prostitution."

Leonard is calling for parents and community members to show "widespread support" for this effort by attending the Hermon School Department Committee meeting on Monday, January 9, 2023.

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Hermon Public Schools District presides over three public schools and serves 1,279 students.

Hermon Public Schools District currently has an "opt-out process" that allows parents to bar their child from being assigned certain books to read. However, Leonard says that the students can still go to the library and check out the book, rendering the opt-out process useless.

When Fox News Digital contacted a library staff member to receive a comment on the matter, the staff member hung up on the phone call, declining the request for comment on the issue. 

Fox News Digital also reached out to the Hermon Public Schools District superintendent Micah Grant, but he did not immediately respond to a request for comment.