This report has been updated to include responses from Nixa Board of Education President Josh Roberts.
The Nixa Board of Education removed four titles and limited two more from the shelves of the Nixa High School library during a special meeting on Tuesday.
After hours of deliberation and review, board members removed “Blankets” by Craig Thompson, “Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel” by Margaret Atwood, “Something Happened in Our Town” by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins and Ann Hazzard and “Unpregnant” by Jenni Hendricks and Ted Caplan, according to a Nixa Public Schools official.
Board members decided to retain “Maus” by Art Spiegelman without any restrictions. “Empire of Storms” by Sarah J. Maas and “Lucky” by Alice Sebold were retained with restriction, requiring parent permission for checkout, according to the official.
“Blankets,” “Handmaid's Tale” and “Maus” were reviewed at the request of staff to determine compliance with a state law passed in 2022. That law prohibits elementary or secondary educators from providing explicit sexual material to a student, and classifies doing so as a class A misdemeanor.
The other four titles were brought to the school board's attention by citizens seeking to have them removed over content concerns.
Extending over a three and a half-hour stretch, the consideration of the titles was the only subject on the agenda for Tuesday night's meeting. About 30 members of the public were given the chance to speak, said Nixa Board of Education President Josh Roberts, before board members gave their deliberation.
Roberts said Wednesday he was pleased with how the meeting was run and how board members and attendees conducted themselves. He remembered a similar meeting from about a year ago that was chaotic, with people name-calling, cheering and yelling. People in favor of removing titles that dealt with LGBTQ issues were called “Nazis” and “fascists,” Roberts said, and people against the removals were called “pedophiles” and “groomers.”
“Having seen what happened last year, we set the tone in the beginning,” Roberts said. “We are all here for the same reason, we are all pulling in the same direction for our kids.”
Roberts said that the board's action dealt only with removing those titles from the shelves of Nixa High School's library. A student that brings one of the removed titles to class is allowed to do so.
Some votes split, others in agreement
Board members agreed on some actions, and differed on others:
• The votes to retain “Maus” and remove “Blankets” and “Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel” were all the result of 7-0 votes.
“Maus,” by Art Spiegelman, is a graphic novel that offers a retelling of the Holocaust. Nixa's consideration of a removal had drawn interest from national groups encouraging the board not to do so.
Roberts said that the removal of “Handmaid's Tale” applies only to a graphic novel, which featured explicit art of sexual situations.
“The book is in the library, and it is not restricted in any way,” Roberts said. “With the graphic novel, the content wasn't the issue. The issue became its sexual depictions, which the board thought ran afoul of the state's new law.”
• “Empire of Storms” drew a split vote, with four voting to retain it and 3 voting to remove it. “Lucky” also drew a split vote, with 5 voting to retain under restriction and 2 voting for removal.
• The other two titles drew three-way votes. “Something Happened in Our Town” drew four votes for removal, 2 for restricted retention and 1 for retention, while “Unpregnant” received 3 votes for removal, 2 for restricted retention and 2 for retention.
Further review
Roberts said that Tuesday's meeting should address book removal issues for the immediate future. The district has a process in place for taking removal requests from citizens, and the four titles considered Tuesday had gone through that process.
According to Nixa Public Schools protocol, a concern about a book's content is considered by a five-person team, which renders a review of the book. The person who submitted the concern can appeal the decision to the school board.
The district's process, however, is up for its own review. Roberts said the board will study its process during an upcoming retreat meeting and its regular meeting scheduled for June 22.
Before the modern wave of book challenging, Nixa Public Schools reported one challenge over 16 years. Now, the number of challenges is becoming difficult to handle, with each review requiring a different five-person team, Roberts said.
Roberts also said that citizens have filed Sunshine Law requests to identify members of those teams. Those Sunshine Law results have been used to ridicule members of review teams publicly, Roberts said.
“We try to discourage people from doing that,” Roberts said. “It makes it so people don't want to serve on those book committees.”
