Academy School District 20 board of education candidates offered different perspectives on book removals, school safety and inclusivity during Tuesday night’s candidate forum. The slate includes four candidates vying for two open seats on the five-person board.

Incumbents Heather Cloninger and Will Temby attempt to retain their spots over newcomers Amy Shandy and Derrick Wilburn. All candidates have had children pass through D-20 schools.

Book removals

The board faced five formal book challenges last year, and it struck down each attempt at pulling titles from library shelves. However, several other titles were later temporarily removed without board input by way of an informal request and superintendent mandate. Those titles returned to libraries over the summer.

“The board unanimously voted to keep the books in the library because they simply offended somebody’s political ideology, so when that happens, I will never ban a book,” Temby said, adding books must be age appropriate, particularly in regards to graphic sexual content or profanity “with no redeeming value.”

Academy School District 20 returns disputed materials to library shelves, pledges to follow policy for future removals

The district can and should, however, do a better job of vetting large groups of new books sent to school libraries by book publishers to ensure all books align with district values, Temby said.

All four candidates agreed they do not support graphically sexual material in school libraries, though each offered a different nuance to their stance.

Book evaluations should be done on a case-by-case basis and cannot simply target particular topics like LGBTQ+ issues or hard drug usage, according to Wilburn. He was a vocal supporter of the unofficial request to remove books late last spring and characterized some books currently in D-20 libraries as pornographic and inconsistent with district goals.

To emphasize his stance that some books are unfit for student eyes, Wilburn at a student-led forum last week read aloud explicit passages from books only available in high school libraries, a “performance” he said he would not be repeating. Young children were in the audience last week, alarming some parents who decried the move as a violation of trust.

Cloninger criticized Wilburn’s action as taking away parental rights, which she said is the crux of the issue: Just because one family or student is comfortable with a book does not mean everyone will be, and books appropriate for a high school will look different from those in an elementary school.

Shandy said it is up to the community to decide what types of books they want to offer students and noted Amazon sells tens of millions of books online.

“So you could say in theory that any library that doesn’t hold all 32 million books is banning a book, and we know that that is not the case,” Shandy said.

Inclusivity

LBGTQ+ stories are often the target of book challenges across the country, and just a year removed from the mass shooting at Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ+ nightclub Club Q, multiple local districts have proposed policies and procedures that would prevent school employees from asking students their pronouns. The directive disproportionately harms LGBTQ+ youth, critics and advocates say.

D-20 in August issued such a mandate to its employees after at least two parents complained, email correspondence shared with The Gazette shows. The campaign manager for both Shandy and Wilburn is among those who complained, emails show.

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When asked how they plan to manage “the negative narratives surrounding” LGBTQ+ students, Shandy said she will “get back to the basics and focus on academics and student outcomes.” Student achievement is the answer, she said.

Administration must foster a sense of belonging from the top down so students know somebody has their back, Wilburn said.

“The caucasian children of upper-middle class caucasian parents who attend Christian or LDS church service on Sunday or Wednesday regularly, they need to be felt like they are being protected and included just like all the other student populations as well,” Wilburn added.

Cloninger spoke more directly to the LGBTQ+ population, saying “just because I put a rainbow on my shirt or I wear a certain color or what not, that does not mean that I am ignoring my Christianity.”

“It’s incomprehensible to me that all doesn’t mean all, and I 100% look out for all children,” Cloninger said. “We’re in charge, like Mr. Temby said, of meeting them where they are. That’s not something that we can change as a board. We take everyone where they are.”

A speech-language pathologist who founded her own therapy business, which now employs more than 200 people, Shandy said a primary goal of her campaign is to advocate for special education students. The candidate also is a strong voice in favor of parental rights, which she stressed as a general panacea to issues such as chronic absenteeism and mental health.

Wilburn, too, leaned in on parental involvement as an area of focus, though Temby countered that not all students have parents or a stable home life that would make involvement a plausible solution to big-picture school issues.

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Security

Three of four candidates support the district’s mill levy override ballot measure, which would bring up to an extra $35 million into D-20 to specifically support teacher salaries, facility improvements and security measures. Cloninger, Temby and Wilburn said the measure would be an important step in properly securing schools since it would add a school safety resource officer at every elementary school.

Shandy dissented, saying D-20 should explore every affordable option short of increasing voter property taxes, such as arming school employees in the event of an emergency. The MLO would charge an estimated extra $2.28, $11.40 or $22.80 per month in 2024 property taxes depending on home value and would slightly increase over the following two years.

Shandy and Wilburn both support the FASTER program as a way of securing schools. The voluntary program offers firearm and emergency response training to teachers and administrators.

Cloninger said she vehemently rejects the FASTER program and is instead in favor of bolstering SRO presence.