Chronicle of Mt. Juliet
MT. JULIET WEATHER

Wilson County Schools removes two books from libraries

Schools' start, end times changed



The Wilson County Schools board voted to remove two books from its high school libraries and changed the starting and ending times for schools for the 2023-24 school year at its monthly meeting that lasted six hours on Monday night.

The vote to change the school times was unanimous.

Starting in the fall, the district’s 10 kindergarten through fifth grade schools and the three kindergarten through eighth grade schools will start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 2:30 p.m. Watertown Middle School and Watertown High School will also start and end at those times.

The remaining schools, including three sixth through eighth schools and four high schools, will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m. Most of the time changes involve a shift of 15 minutes.

The two removed books are “Damsel” and “Infandous,” both written by Elana K. Arnold. The books were the most recent reviewed by the district’s Book Review Committee. The vote to remove the books was 4-2 for each one. Carrie Pfeiffer and Larry Tomlinson voted both times to keep the books in the libraries. Board chair Jamie Farough was absent from the meeting.

Board members Dr. Beth Meyers and Joseph Padilla said they had concerns about the two books, saying they include topics like violence, bestiality, physical and sexual abuse.

Tomlinson said that if the book committee takes the time to read the books being considered, the school board should honor the committee’s recommendation.

During the community comment period at the beginning of the meeting,  most of the speakers opposed keeping the books in the libraries.  Some of them read out loud portions of the books they considered to be graphic.

WCS attorney Lauren Bush said at the board workshop last week that language within the state and federal statutes concerning wording which is “harmful to minors” be included in the policy covering books in the library.

The board voted 6-0 to defer a decision to rezone students at Rutland Elementary and Gladeville Elementary for the upcoming school year. The rezoning is scheduled to be discussed at a special called meeting on Monday, June 12.

At the work session, WCS Deputy Director of Operations Travis Mayfield said that if the district did not rezone some students, Rutland would start at 100 percent capacity in August.

He suggested moving 15 Rutland students to Springdale Elementary, 107 students from Rutland to Gladeville Elementary and 108 students from Gladeville Elementary to Southside School.

WCS Director of Schools Jeff Luttrell said at the work session that if “we don’t make some changes to our zoning and utilize our building, we’re going to (use) more portables. I don’t like the cost effectiveness of that. This is not uncommon for large growing districts to have to make these decisions.”

The board tweaked the district’s attendance policy. Students still have a maximum of five parents’ notes to count as excused absences per semester but those notes now do not have to be limited to student illness. Each school’s principal can now approve up to 10 absences per academic year for each student to cover non-school activities.

Kim McGee, who chaired the meeting in Farough’s absence, suggested having two meetings per month rather than one. She said she wanted the board to consider holding the meetings with different agenda items such as proclamations or citizen comments at one of the two meetings. There was no vote taken on her request.

During the meeting board members and board attorney Mike Jennings held a nearly one-hour executive session about pending litigation. No votes were taken during the executive session.