Anne
@AnneRussey
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Katy ISD mom. Enneagram 9- Peacemaker. Will fight for peace. Weapons of choice: 📝 + 🗳+📚+🗣Co-founder @txfreedomread
Katy, TX
Joined June 2015
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If I could speak bluntly to every
@katyisd
parent who has expressed shock, sadness & anger over our district's decision to cancel an author visit here's what I would say... 🧵
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Meet the book that triggered the
@katyisd
board of trustees to withhold thousands of taxpayer funded library books from 94,000 students, weeks before the start of school. 😱
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Curious about the claims, I borrowed Itty Bitty Kitty Corn from my public library and read it. Here’s what I found.
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Her accusations, based on a completely fabricated complaint, resulted in so many wasted hours for
@katy_libraries
elementary staff, who were instructed to - or felt compelled to- audit their entire catalogs one by one to weed out any “sexually explicit” books.
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The parents who have managed to:
✔️delay/cancel 2 author visits
✔️ban 12 books entirely
✔️restrict/weed countless others
✔️nearly eliminate inclusive classroom libraries
✔️outnumber educators on book review committees
✔️have police remove a library book
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So yeah... I get it. You're busy. But until the "silent majority" makes it a priority to get & stay involved, nothing is going to change. You have to show up to board meetings. You can e-mail board members. Or sign up to speak during open forums. You cannot stay silent.
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Trustee Calhoun admits she made a “mistake,” I don’t feel like that’s enough.
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I am so glad you're outraged. You have every right to be. But where have you been!? Because it sure hasn't been making your presence felt or opinions known at school board meetings. If you had, there's no way you would be shocked that this happened.
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The folks who want to shove queer kids into closets by stripping them of books, affirming classrooms, school safe LGBT websites & as if that's not enough- suicide prevention resources too!
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The grown adults who think any mention of diversity, equity & inclusion in a book, policy, professional development or classroom is code for "CRT" and want to throw away decades of progress towards greater equity to save America from the "woke agenda."
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Can we talk about how hard it is to take people who claim they want to "protect the children" by removing "sexually explicit" "obscene" books from school libraries seriously, when they come after illustrated picture books like Bathe the Cat and Families, Families, Families?
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So- here's your action plan.
✔️Attend monthly board meetings. Get and stay involved.
✔️Research trustee candidates: Study their platforms. And follow the $ for any PAC donations. Campaign season starts now.
✔️Make a plan to vote before or on May 6.
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This is real life. January 23, 2024. Conroe ISD, Texas, United States of America. Books being hauled out of classrooms. In boxes. For disposal. If you’re not concerned about our democracy crumbling under the weight of Christian Nationalist extremism, you’re not paying attention.
I want y’all to look at the fruits of the book-banning movement in Texas. A HS teacher shared these images on social media today, saying that these books have been removed from their classroom library and are being “shipped back to the district for disposal.”
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Those who praise a sitting board member who protested outside a Sunday morning worship service at an LGBT affirming church, paving the way for Nazis to protest the same targeted event a week later. One of these folks is running to be your next trustee btw.
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After another parent persistently requested trustee Calhoun specify which sexually explicit books were in the elementary school library she named publicly, this was her response.
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You can start by attending the next board meeting, scheduled for Monday, January 23 at 5pm at the KISD ESC. Meetings are open to the public, even just to observe. Speakers who wish to address the board, must sign up by 2pm on the day of the meeting.
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So it should be noted, if the proposed “gender policy” is adopted by the
@katyisd
board tomorrow, it is reasonable to expect the board will move to ban books like Itty Bitty Kitty Corn- that they *believe* violate the “gender fluidity materials” portion of their policy.
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Let the
@katyisd
board know you they aren’t protecting anyone with their discriminatory policies, and that we, as a community, won’t stand for it.
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Trustee Calhoun claims that while the book is not “sexually explicit,” it does contain “pronoun terminology” and content that parents find “sexually suggestive” and “inappropriate.”
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And don't forget the parents who proudly partnered with Christian (nationalist) cell phone company, Patriot Mobile, to donate 73 "In God We Trust" signs that have been placed into every Katy ISD school, in compliance with a Texas law.
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We need to LISTEN 👏🏻 TO 👏🏻 EDUCATORS. 👏🏻 These are common sense solutions that could benefit ALL Texans. And they have nothing to do with “culture wars” or funneling public ed $ to private schools.
Nearly a year after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a task force to look at the state’s teacher shortages, the group is recommending that lawmakers increase salaries, improve training and commit to respecting teachers’ time.
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Our newly elected Christian Nationalist
@katyisd
board voted to send 100s+ of tax payer purchased books to storage, indefinitely. But they aren’t “book banners”- right? 🧐 …🔥📚 If you’re surprised, you haven’t been paying attention.
via
@houstonchron
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Unofficial
@katyisd
results are in. Decisive victory for Rebecca Fox & Dawn Champagne tonight! Katy ISD seems to finally be waking up to the fact that anti-public education PACs are bad for our district. Celebrate tonight. The work continues tomorrow.
🦊🎉🗳️🍾🎉
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@jdmiddleton55
@katyisd
And every other story about someone wanting to be or become something or someone they are not- right?
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Educate yourself on the things that concern you. For example, this letter by
@NAACP_LDF
describes how our at-large election system contributes to inequity & suggests some solutions.
More Texas school news:
In a new letter, the
@NAACP_LDF
is warning Katy ISD, a sprawling district in the Houston suburbs, that its at-large voting system is diluting the votes of non-white residents and may violate the Voting Rights Act. 1/
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Do you recall what else happened on May 24? 19 elementary school students and 2 elementary school teachers were murdered by a f*cking teenager with a f*cking gun while the f*cking police waited f*cking forever to help the poor, f*cking dying children.
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All I’m saying is if I have to OPT IN for my kids to shop a book fair, I sure as heck better have to OPT IN for an uncertified, “chaplain” to speak a single word to my kids during their school day.
Parents could already OPT OUT of book fairs, by not sending their kids with $. Now the rest of us have to OPT IN, and teachers have to take on one more administrative task, in an effort to appease “parents” (and non-parents) who don’t want their kids to shop Scholastic. 🙄
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@katyisd
Board meeting open to the public, Monday, Aug 28 5PM at the ESC. Speakers must register by 2pm Monday. And sign in by 4:45pm. Arrive early- parking may be a challenge.
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Once again
@katyisd
caves to the unrelenting demands of parents who insist on restricting access and experiences for ALL students and not just their own.
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If you believe the claims by people driving the efforts to restrict and ban school library books, that they are only interested in “protecting children” from “sexually explicit material,” do these latest books banned by
@katyisd
give you any pause?
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Plano ISD joins the ranks of large Texas public school districts caving to extremist antics. You will never appease these people. Their goal is to disrupt & dismantle public ed. Books they deem “dirty” are their Trojan horse.
After a coordinated pressure campaign about “dirty” books, Plano ISD announced this week that it’s “pausing” all new library book purchases and may be revising its library materials policy.
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One parent has challenged over 60 books in
@katyisd
without filing formal requests for reconsideration. She has been given a “fast pass” to submit lists of dozens of books directly to the “internal review” cue. This is not normal. Even for us.
112 book titles were on the Katy ISD “internal review” cue between October 23, 2023 - January 11, 2024. 62 of those titles were submitted to the District for “internal review” by one parent.
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@shawnkatz
@katyisd
If you’re still a Katy ISD tax payer, please consider using your voice to speak up in support of students who haven’t graduated yet. The “other side” includes homeschool/private school parents & people whose kids are grown. And please make sure you still vote in May!
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Well I think this photo at pro-voucher rally answers the question about where Shawn Miller (Position 3 Katy ISD Board of Trustee candidate) stands on vouchers. Katy ISD will lose $6160 per student per year who opts for the $10k voucher for home/private school. Vouchers hurt kids.
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It is alarming and embarrassing that one “constituent” essentially had the power to effectively stop delivery of 100s of library books to ALL Katy ISD students, based on their disapproval of the inclusion of books that contain “ideologies” and “themes” they disagree with. /6
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Just for kicks I looked up the cost of private schools in and around Houston. Not one costs less than $19,000. Most cost more than $23,000. Per year.
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@KenSpreitzer
@katyisd
Well in this case, because less than 5-7% of registered voters turned out to vote for extremist school board members who campaigned on banning “sexually explicit” books, they are obliged to put their billionaire funded PAC interests ahead of common sense & student interests. 🤓
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As of a few months ago,
@katyisd
policy EFA & EFB requires the district to publicly post purchase order requests submitted by librarians to the website for a 30 day comment period.
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Banning (or restricting) student’s access to books because they contain opinions, ideologies or ideas our
@katyisd
board finds disagreeable violates student’s 1st amendment rights. This has to stop. /7
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The same people harassing journalists, are the same people harassing educators & librarians, are the same people harassing LGBTQ+ and students of color, are the same people running our
@katyisd
school board.
This morning in
@AirMailWeekly
: An essay about the time some moms in Katy, Texas, threatened to report me to the police as a child sexual predator—and what it told me on the widespread attacks on LGBTQ authors, teachers and librarians.
Read it here:
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Today, the Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into
@katyisd
over the illegal & discriminatory “gender policy” passed by our school board in August.
As the
@katyisd
Christian Nationalist extremist majority board faces unprecedented push back from the community ahead of their plans to adopt one of the ugliest, most discriminatory “gender policies” in existence, the president doubles down on h their hate.
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Texas book lovers beware. Keep an eye out for districts employing “BookmarkED” to help them decide which books to ban. 🤦🏼♀️ We do not need ANY help banning more books in Texas 🫠
The Creators of the BookmarkED App, Meant to "Help" With Book Ban Legislation Advocated for Texas Book Bans, and Include a Texas Superintendent:
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👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
With a $33 billion surplus Texas public school superintendents should not have to beg for $ to meet the basic educational needs of our students, to adequately pay their staff, and to keep our kids/teachers safe.
The 88th Texas Legislative Session– A Message from Superintendent Dr. Gregorski
Read Superintendent Gregorski's message regarding the legislative session on our website:
Contact your elected officials:
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"This year the district expanded the terms under which a book could be pulled for review, adding "nudity" in the definition of inappropriate material. For the first time, six elementary school books have been removed."
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If you’re not following the drama playing out in Keller ISD after some of their extremist PAC backed “parents rights” trustees snuck a documentary film crew into a HS and filmed students WITHOUT parent permission, you should be. 👀
The
@KellerISD
trainwreck continues: Christian filmmakers were brought on a high school campus by trustee Sandi Walker and interviewed students without releases or parents' consent. (What happened to "parents' rights" and "giving parents a voice"?)
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Join me in fighting against book bans in
@katyisd
and for the freedom for all students' right to read.
#savethebooks
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In case you’re wondering- the 2 speakers who read out of context passages from library books, out loud during last night’s
@katyisd
meeting- are activists traveling around the state trying to shock & intimidate school boards into banning books without following board policies.
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Remember when the
@katyisd
school board insisted on sticking 100s of library books into “storage” because of concerns raised by “the community” about recent library book orders containing “sexuality explicit” books? /1
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“Where they burn books, they burn people.” -
@cameronjsamuels
addressing the Senate Judiciary Committee on book bans.
Cameron Samuels is a student at Brandeis University and graduated high school in Katy, Texas.
They’re working to protect access to books for young people in Texas.
“We must recognize the decisions of individual families do not supersede students' rights to our own education.”
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OMG THIS. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
If one “concerned community member” can cut off access to ALL library books for an ENTIRE public school system, over “3 library books” WE HAVE A PROBLEM.
@FortWorthISD
you are enabling extremists to asset their ideology on your entire district.
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It is 2023- in the United States of America- and nearly one third of parents surveyed said they would want to “ban a book” that makes them or their children feel “uncomfortable.” 😳 This idea is scarier, to me, than the content in any of those books they want to ban.
95% of parents want their kids to have school libraries, but 1/3 would seek to ban a book if it made them or their child uncomfortable. The latest parental perceptions survey is out, and it's *wild*:
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Let this sink in. Adults, in Katy, Texas, believe illustrations and text from Bathe the Cat & Families, Families, Families violate the Texas Penal Code.
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But people who think books about racism are CRT, or think a story about a multi-generational immigrant family is unrelatable to my community, or a book should be excluded from a library bc the author is "too inclusive of LGBT people" should not get to decide what my kids can read
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Someone else can give her a cookie. I’m tired. 🙄
Please forgive my exasperation and cynicism. A 🧵 …
New: She Campaigned for a Texas School Board Seat as a GOP Hard-Liner. Now She’s Rejecting Her Party’s Extremism.
w/
@TexasTribune
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💔 This is wrong. 💔
“This used to be a library”
- Marshall Elementary School, Houston Independent School District (Aug 2023)
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@katyisd
@DrSeuss
@AlanKatzBooks
@ericcarle
So, tell me again, if your only concern is “protecting children” from “sexually explicit material,” why are these 5 beloved picture books no longer available to any
@katyisd
students?
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They claim an illustrated drawing that says "I love my dads" is legally "obscene" & a picture of roosters that says "some families have two dads" is legally harmful. Violating the Texas Penal Code is a *CRIME.*
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At least one elementary school has cancelled the author visit for ALL students, rather than referring parents to the Opt Out option available to them.
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This is a must read for anyone who cares about public education in Texas. Relevant, relatable and really, really important.
?
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8 former
@katyisd
trustees, some who even ran against each other in prior elections, are endorsing incumbents Dawn Champagne and Rebecca Fox for school board. These former trustees understand public education vs pro-voucher PAC influence is on the ballot this election cycle.
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Grateful to
@RealHoustonMoms
for allowing me to lay my thoughts on the dangers of book bans, here.
This is War: How We Can Stop Book Bans in Our Community via
@realhoustonmoms
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Librarians are defenders of free speech & democracy. The harassment & abuse they’ve been subjected to is devastating. The lack of institutional support most receive is inexcusable. 💔📚
Appalling examples of librarian harassment. - School and Public Librarians Describe On-the-Job Harassment | School Library Journal
@ACLU
@PENamerica
@OIF
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These people are alleging criminal laws are being violated by librarians offering these books to children simply by having them on their shelves. These crimes are punishable by jail time and fines. These allegations, being made flippantly, carry SERIOUS consequences.
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@katyisd
@DrSeuss
@AlanKatzBooks
@ericcarle
Remember, this is a predictable outcome to book banning extremists gaining a majority on a school board.
Beloved silly, picture books/graphic novels like No David, the Day the Crayons Quit, Paper Bag Princess, Captain Underpants, and countless others are at risk of being removed from elementary school library and classroom shelves.
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“ The act of outing kids is just the latest step in a forced march of cruelty.
The fact that this happened to 19 children violates more than just ethics codes and laws. It violates a fundamental human code of what it means to be good and decent.”
@MagEGordon
@Hou_Landing
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LOVE THIS!!
‘We fought so hard.’ Sherman High ‘Oklahoma!’ to debut after trans student reinstated
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Book lovers *showed up* at tonight’s
@katyisd
board meeting. 📚💛
Thank you Dawn Champagne & Rebecca Fox for advocating for a policy change that *should* at least free classics like No David, Wacky Wednesday & The Paper Bag Princess from book jail.
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I'm a Katy ISD mom fighting for the freedom to read in my hometown. If you're a Texan who wants to join the fight to protect intellectual freedom & first amendment rights in our state, please sign & share this petition & follow
@TXFreedomRead
on socials.
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As always, parents can set boundaries & rules for their *own* children to follow, but other parents/adults should NOT get to determine those rules & boundaries for anyone else's kids. Not every book is for every reader, at every age.
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So I agree with
@katyisd
trustee Fox, who told the
@HoustonChron
“Nudity was added to the policy, but a book about a crayon with a wrapper is not nudity. That’s not what was intended by the policy...If this continues, we may have to revisit the definitions of the policy.”
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This 🧵 is 🔥 🔥 🔥…
Billionaire mega-donors are trying to destroy Texas public schools with a private voucher scam.
They say it’s what parents want. But thousands of parents just showed up at the Texas Capitol to defend our schools.
These PTA moms have a message: Come and Take It.
#txlege
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@katyisd
@DrSeuss
@AlanKatzBooks
@ericcarle
The extremists, including 4 of our 7 board members, who will celebrate the removal of these and other books, will not be satisfied until public education is defunded and destroyed.
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Texans are letting Conroe ISD rob its students of the constitutionally protected first amendment freedom to read, with every book that is banned. This is not the Texas I grew up in. This is not who we are. 💔
Update: This week, Conroe ISD announced that 5 more books are banned from classroom collections, bringing the total to 118 this school year.
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@GregAbbott_TX
LOL -You can’t be for real. FUND PUBLIC EDUCATION. THANK TEACHERS BY RELEASING THE FUNDS NECESSARY TO SAVE THEIR JOBS!
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On July 31, I asked the
@katyisd
board to remove the criteria for elementary school books that prohibits "nudity" and "implied nudity" -which common sense should have told them would censor countless silly & beloved elementary school picture books.
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@LaneyHawes
@KellerISD
@Mike_Hixenbaugh
@pflagftworth
@brianlopeztx
@wynneellyn
@PFLAG
@memangrum
@TaliRichman
@startelegram
@cjtackett
@TasslynM
Do books about the Holocaust, slavery, and other historical genocides and atrocities fall under their definition of “horror”? Will they prevent elementary school students from learning about real, accurate history bc they may feel “afraid, shocked, or disgusted”?
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Don’t let the small, loud group of adults driving the push to ban books like Itty Bitty Kitty Corn & No David speak for you. Books & student’s right to read are on the agenda for Monday in
@katyisd
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🚩To be clear- these two elementary school picture books have been marked *SAFE* and retained by formal reconsideration committees comprised of 4 parents and 3 staff members in
@katyisd
during the 2023 fall semester. These books are *NOT* banned in Katy.
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As of today, the following library books have been banned from
@katyisd
school libraries, classrooms and curriculums.
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Interestingly, there were 7 forms filed on Bathe the Cat, several of which contained duplicated content- indicating a coordinated attempt by parents to get this silly, adorably illustrated Texas 2x2 book banned. Here was the complaint listed on half of the forms.
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Today was a hard day for some folks in
@katyisd
💔😢
I see you, and value you and your contributions to your campuses and our district- the sacrifices you have made for our community- for my kids- for all of our kids.
Read Katy ISD Superintendent Gregorski's message regarding the 2024-2025 school district budget on our website:
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Say it LOUDER for the parent who stood up at the
@katyisd
board meeting last night demanding The Hate U Give be banned because it is "vulgar" & "divides kids by race." The book is about RACISM. 😑/1
.
@angiecthomas
—author of the frequently banned The Hate U Give—responds to a
@CBSSunday
segment on banned books that featured only white parents from the book banning group Moms for Liberty.
#BannedBooks
#BlackAuthors
#BlackLives
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That said, thanks to the formal reconsideration process working as it should, a committee comprised of a MAJORITY of parents, and three professional educators, Bathe the Cat and Families, Families, Families were retained in
@katyisd
...
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Katy Pride hosted its first ever Pride Festival today. Today was full of rainbows, love, sunshine, cool breezes, hugs, laughter, joy & fierce f*cking resilience. Thankful for the opportunity for our community to come together to remind each other that not all people suck. 🏳️⚧️🫶🏳️🌈
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If you think this is as ridiculous as I do, please sign the Texas Freedom to Read Project petition, to connect with our growing network of Texans committed to defending first amendment freedoms in our state. Follow us on socials
@TXFreedomRead
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Here are a couple of pages depicting the illustrated drawings & refrigerator in question. 😱
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Hey
@cuzela4katyisd
what part of the
@katyisd
EFB Local board policy allows a "parent" who doesn’t like a book, to opt out of filing a formal request for reconsideration and instead submit lists of titles for "internal review?" 👀
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