An update from the 02/09/2023 Canyon ISD Board of Trustees Meeting:
On Jan 26th, 2023, Canyon ISD Assistant Superintendent Cameron Rosser emailed a list of over 600 books to be purchased by Canyon ISD and gave parents 13 days to review them. This gesture meant a Canyon parent or citizen would have had to review over 46 titles a day to get through the list by the deadline. The Canyon purchase list contained numerous titles that included sexually explicit content, witchcraft/occult, excessive profanity, and LGBT content.
In August 2022, the Canyon ISD board of trustees adopted the EFB (Local) board policy which empowers the district to remove obscene materials or other materials that do not align with community values.
If it were not for a small group of Canyon ISD parents, community members and educators that divided up the over 600 titles, reviewed each one and reported their findings at the 02/09/2023 board meeting, numerous titles with completely unacceptable content would have been purchased with Randall County tax proceeds and, more disturbingly, would have been distributed throughout Canyon ISD campus libraries and into the hands of minors of all ages.
Besides having sexually explicit content and storylines that glorify the occult, demonism, and the LGBT lifestyle, many, if not most, of the titles were of questionable educational value. For example, of the 92 titles chosen for the junior high, nearly half were “graphic novels” which are essentially comic books with a library binding. The average recommended age for the books Canyon ISD proposed for its 7th and 8th graders was eleven and the average recommended grade level was 5.9. Even more alarming is the fact that the average lexile, a measure of the difficulty of any given reading material, was 620 which is appropriate for late 2nd grade and early 3rd grade readers. Students in 7th and 8th grade should be reading material with a lexile of at least 1030, just to be in the 50th percentile. As we have seen and heard in numerous Canyon ISD board meetings, the 8th grade reading scores are abysmal. Is there a connection between reading materials and reading scores? Perhaps this is a study for the Texas legislature.
The above screenshot was obtained via a public information request to Canyon ISD.
It is clear that neither the Canyon ISD Superintendent, Daryl Flusche, nor his current administration will enforce the guidelines set forth by the board. It is also obvious that the current board of trustees did not review the book purchase list prior to it being sent out for a rushed public review.
Canyon ISD, like a lot of Texas boards, need board representation that will ask the hard questions, research, and follow through with tenacity to ensure children are protected. Canyon ISD has four board positions on the May 6th, 2023, ballot. A majority conservative win could be the first step in changing the trajectory of Canyon schools, its students, and the community.
Resources:
The original purchase list posted by Canyon ISD.
A copy of the document (in case Canyon removes the original). Note: there is added data where parents made notes.
Specific harmful books on the original purchase list that have book reviews completed or we have gathered information on.
See also "Canyon ISD | All Related Blogs".
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