SUDBURY—School books like ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank and the Harry Potter series and others pre-2008 have not been removed from Rainbow District School Board (RDSB) school libraries.
“No, there has been no directive come down (from the province) that says that books pre-2008 are to be removed from the libraries,” said Nicole Charette, communications officer with the RDSB last week. “Even the Peel District School Board (PDSB) has indicated they are not doing this. Their director of education has in a statement said this is not being done. All the books in our schools are still in school libraries,” she said.
Ms. Charette said, “We have not banned any books from the libraries in Rainbow schools. We have added to our libraries to ensure that we have a diverse collection of books. We want resources for teaching and learning to reflect the students that we serve, promote crucial thinking, and foster a love of reading. We offer students a collection of fiction and non-fiction texts.”
This story developed after CBC News reported on September 13 that students and parents were questioning the Peel school board’s seemingly inconsistent approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by PDSB last spring in response to what was a seemingly provincial directive from the Minister of Education.
They said the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier.
Subsequently, Rashmi Swarup, director of education for PDSB said in a statement, “The Peel District School Board follows the library weeding guidelines set by the Canadian School Libraries Association. These guidelines direct the teacher librarians at our 259 schools to keep books with any publishing date that are accurate, relevant to the student population, inclusive, not harmful, and support the current curriculum from the Ministry of Education.”
“To be clear, books such as ‘The Diary of A Young Girl’ by Anne Frank and the Harry Potter series remain in our collections, and where needed, newer versions may be purchased if the book is in poor condition,” the PDSB director wrote. “The weeding and seeding, or replenishment, of schoolbook collections has always been a part of the responsibilities for all teacher librarians within the PDSB and of school boards across Canada. The replenishment process significantly enhances the school libraries’ capacity to offer a more precise, inclusive, culturally relevant and responsive collection of texts for students.”
“PDSB teacher librarians have not been given the direction to remove all books published with a publication date older than 2008 nor has the board received provincial direction to remove particular books from our collections,” said the PDSB director. “Regardless of publication date, older or damaged books that are accurate, relevant to the student population, inclusive, not harmful, and support the current curriculum may stay within the school or schools have the opportunity to repurchase newer copies of the same title to replace the damaged ones.”
“Teacher librarians will continue to be advised to follow the recycling guidelines from the Region of Peel and in collaboration with the school’s custodial staff when determining how to dispose of books.
“Training is conducted annually, and we will be reviewing our training process to ensure consistency in replenishment of Library Learning Commons Resources across PDSB schools,” Director Swarup wrote. “The (PDSB) continues to work to nurture student-centred learning environments that allow children to see themselves reflected in their school every day.”
And, following that statement, on September 13, education minister Stephen Lecce asked the PDSB to immediately stop its so-called “weeding.”
Minister Lecce said on Wednesday of last week that he wrote to PDSB asking it to halt the process. “Ontario is committed to ensuring that the addition of new books better reflects the rich diversity of our communities. It is offensive, illogical and counterintuitive to remove books from years past that educate students on Canada’s history, antisemitism, or celebrated literacy classics,” Minister Lecce wrote in a statement. “I have written to the board to immediately end this practice.”
