I'm a FL teacher who's been forced to cover up books in my classroom. Here's why I'm suing DeSantis.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The latest change is a sweeping act of legislation that requires all public schools to go through a vetting process for their books. The books have to be reviewed by a trained media specialist or librarian to make sure they're appropriate for children.

So, last week, I, an educator of Manatee High School in Bradenton, Florida, got a memo that gave me three choices: I could pack up all the books from my classroom, cover them up, or run them through their vetting process.

If I chose to go through with the last option, I'd have to get approval for them to remain on my classroom shelves.

We have a database called Destiny that marks the books that have already been vetted and approved. Some of my books have gone through that process.

But if it happens to be a book that hasn't yet been vetted or approved, then I can't give it to the kid, which is a real shame because the whole purpose of education is to embrace knowledge. To pull kids to knowledge, to get them to read, to get them to think. And it's very, very sad.

I have a couple hundred books in my room. Former students to this day tell me that they always loved coming to my classroom because I had bookshelf after bookshelf after bookshelf of great literature, history books, government books — almost anything kids wanted.

I have everything from biographies of presidents to books on economics to books on whatever. I have up here a 35-volume set of all of Voltaire's works. I can tell you already that, with maybe the exception of Candide, none of those books are in the system. Now, how often would a kid want something out there? Not that often.

But the point is that it would take me weeks, probably, to have to go through the process of trying to vet all of these books and get them in the system. So to me, this is just Big Brother looking over our shoulders, and fundamentally a violation of our first amendment right, right to free speech, and students' first amendment rights of free speech.

So I took the option of just covering them up. I took rolls of chart paper and taped them together to hide the books on the shelves. On Thursday, we got a follow-up that we don't have to cover them up anymore. But we can't let the kids get them. We can't give them out to the kids and we can't let kids read them. So I haven't taken my paper down. It's still up.

If I chose not to comply with the memo, I would have been reprimanded, which, frankly, doesn't really bother me. But the State Board of Education has made violation of this a third-degree felony. I would hope that the state would not actually go that far, though.

I made a little sign that I taped up on the chart paper that says "Closed by order of the governor." It's a little dig, and that drew a laugh from some of my students. So, at the end of the day, I felt it was actually a stronger statement to cover the books up than to defy the order.

[...]

If I could meet DeSantis face-to-face, I'd ask him if he understands the ramifications of some of his actions. I'd ask him if these ramifications are worth the political points that he might gain. I would ask him to think about the impact of this on teachers, students, and classrooms. I'd ask him to realize that he's making the educational process more difficult for everybody, and he's discouraging out-of-state educators from choosing to teach in Florida.

Business Insider

Ron DeSantis is a communist traitor. The Stop W.O.K.E. Act is the new Patriot Act.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Conservatives are projecting and are the ones who hate freedom. DeSantis is literally giving China an advantage just so that people will hate gay people more.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Let’s wait a year or so to see what the results are as transition periods can be rough at times . Look at Thatcher in the UK for example as the first few years after she implemented her policies created pretty tough times for the UK but it clearly worked out in the long run .

[Mr. Smith]

Let’s wait a year or so to see what the results are as transition periods can be rough at times . Look at Thatcher in the UK for example as the first few years after she implemented her policies created pretty tough times for the UK but it clearly worked out in the long run .

The Milk Snatcher? Really?

Oh, as for the actual content: Based!

[HillGoose]

big govt NONSENSE

how does this help the average person? it does not at all

big govt is out of control these days, especially in florida !

it is a slippery slope to having BIG GOVT BOOK PANELS coming into ur house to REVIEW UR LITERATURE and determine if ur shelf fits BIG GOVT'S requirements.

i worry florida will soon have SOCIAL CREDIT SCORES just like RED CHINA

[OSR stands with Israel]

big govt NONSENSE

how does this help the average person? it does not at all

big govt is out of control these days, especially in florida !

soon they will be having BIG GOVT BOOK PANELS coming into ur house to REVIEW UR LITERATURE and determine if u fit BIG GOVT'S ideal.

i worry florida will soon have SOCIAL CREDIT SCORES just like RED CHINA

Public schools are run by the government regarding of which state or city and textbooks have to be approved by an agency . So public schools are big government regardless and really the only way around it is if you send your kids to private schools . You can pretty much find anyone  across the country whose angered by the action public schools take .

The government has far less say in how private schools are run given they are private .

[HillGoose]

big govt NONSENSE

how does this help the average person? it does not at all

big govt is out of control these days, especially in florida !

soon they will be having BIG GOVT BOOK PANELS coming into ur house to REVIEW UR LITERATURE and determine if u fit BIG GOVT'S ideal.

i worry florida will soon have SOCIAL CREDIT SCORES just like RED CHINA

Public schools are run by the government regarding of which state or city and textbooks have to be approved by an agency . So public schools are big government regardless and really the only way around it is if you send your kids to private schools .

The government has far less say in how private schools are run

i would never send my child to public school bcuz BIG GOVT runs them and allows anti-vax ppl to send their kids to them, homeschooling is the only way

unfortunately many ppl's children have no option but to go to public school, and they should not be deprived of KNOWLEDGE by BIG GOVT RE-EDUCATION PANELS that want to make kids DUMB so that they accept BIG GOVT TYRANNY

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Communist public schools in Florida are being forced to raise children in the Matrix, and keep them from ever escaping it.

Reject capitalism and find Christ. Break through the Matrix, and run from it.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Communist public schools in Florida are being forced to raise children in the Matrix, and keep them from ever escaping it.

Reject capitalism and find Christ. Break through the Matrix, and run from it.

California declared a war on math , and especially advanced math . That got far less outrage on here than the numerous DeSantis threads cause California is governed by liberals

[DaleCooper]

Let’s wait a year or so to see what the results are as transition periods can be rough at times . Look at Thatcher in the UK for example as the first few years after she implemented her policies created pretty tough times for the UK but it clearly worked out in the long run .

LMAO, that's not a flattering comparison.

Anyway, this is clearly some big brother book burning crap, all in the name of sheltering the fat, spoiled children of helicopter parents. And of course it's making up fake censor jobs for talentless bureaucrats in the process. It's just typical nanny-statism and I'm not surprised at all that Republicans are eating up this slop straight from Antichrist DeSantis's piggy little hands.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

No one is stopping kids from willingly reading these books outside of the classroom, its just that woke nonsense shouldn't be influenced by teachers.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Communist public schools in Florida are being forced to raise children in the Matrix, and keep them from ever escaping it.

Reject capitalism and find Christ. Break through the Matrix, and run from it.

California declared a war on math , and especially advanced math . That got far less outrage on here than the numerous DeSantis threads cause California is governed by liberals

If you're looking to argue with someone who believes that California is a model for Democrat policies, I'm not your guy. I'll happily admit that California is a poorly-run state where liberals win on empty promises and fail to deliver. And they keep electing the same assholes because our political system is a literal duopoly. Gavin Newsom and the Democrats in charge take full responsibility for neglecting the people who elected them.

Getting back to the subject, however: this is Big Brother, Patriot Act-style crap. The same bullsh!t that "old school Republicans" pushed in the early 2000s. And I'm not at all surprised to see you support it; Republicans are inherently authoritarian whether they're from the neocon wing or the Trump wing. Democrats are often politically stupid, but they're sadly the lesser evil.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

No one is stopping kids from willingly reading these books outside of the classroom, its just that woke nonsense shouldn't be influenced by teachers.

Please read the article. Nothing was being "pushed." I know I'm already in danger of violating the 20% rule on articles and copyright, but here are the last two paragraphs after what I quoted in the OP:

A kid on Wednesday came up to me and told me he was interested in a presidential biography. He asked me to make a recommendation, and I led him to a colleague's classroom next door because he's got a better selection of those. Even though we're not supposed to, we gave the kid a couple of biographies. So basically we ignored the whole thing because this kid wanted to read.

So if a kid comes to me and wants a book, I'm going to make sure the kid gets a book.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Let’s wait a year or so to see what the results are as transition periods can be rough at times . Look at Thatcher in the UK for example as the first few years after she implemented her policies created pretty tough times for the UK but it clearly worked out in the long run .

LMAO, that's not a flattering comparison.

Anyway, this is clearly some big brother book burning crap, all in the name of sheltering the fat, spoiled children of helicopter parents. And of course it's making up fake censor jobs for talentless bureaucrats in the process. It's just typical nanny-statism and I'm not surprised at all that Republicans are eating up this slop straight from Antichrist DeSantis's piggy little hands.

Thatcher is the 2nd best Anglo nation Leader in at least the past 60 years(Behind Reagan) so I disagree . Even though I am a supporter of DeSantis , I highly doubt that he will be able to break into that top 2 cause Reagan and Thatcher were indeed that great .

[SteveRogers]

No one is stopping kids from willingly reading these books outside of the classroom, its just that woke nonsense shouldn't be influenced by teachers.

School used to be the place where kids were encouraged to seek out books. Now we’ve really done a full 180 to “if kids want to read, they’ll just have to do that on their own time?” That’s really the messaging your side wants to run with? Are you sure?

[DaleCooper]

Let’s wait a year or so to see what the results are as transition periods can be rough at times . Look at Thatcher in the UK for example as the first few years after she implemented her policies created pretty tough times for the UK but it clearly worked out in the long run .

LMAO, that's not a flattering comparison.

Anyway, this is clearly some big brother book burning crap, all in the name of sheltering the fat, spoiled children of helicopter parents. And of course it's making up fake censor jobs for talentless bureaucrats in the process. It's just typical nanny-statism and I'm not surprised at all that Republicans are eating up this slop straight from Antichrist DeSantis's piggy little hands.

Thatcher is the 2nd best Anglo nation Leader in at least the past 60 years(Behind Reagan) so I disagree . Even though I am a supporter of DeSantis , I highly doubt that he will be able to break into that top 2 cause Reagan and Thatcher were indeed that great .

Get a job!

[OSR stands with Israel]

Let’s wait a year or so to see what the results are as transition periods can be rough at times . Look at Thatcher in the UK for example as the first few years after she implemented her policies created pretty tough times for the UK but it clearly worked out in the long run .

LMAO, that's not a flattering comparison.

Anyway, this is clearly some big brother book burning crap, all in the name of sheltering the fat, spoiled children of helicopter parents. And of course it's making up fake censor jobs for talentless bureaucrats in the process. It's just typical nanny-statism and I'm not surprised at all that Republicans are eating up this slop straight from Antichrist DeSantis's piggy little hands.

Thatcher is the 2nd best Anglo nation Leader in at least the past 60 years(Behind Reagan) so I disagree . Even though I am a supporter of DeSantis , I highly doubt that he will be able to break into that top 2 cause Reagan and Thatcher were indeed that great .

Get a job!

I have one

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

BREAKING! Ron DeSantis bans reading altogether for anyone under age 18 after learning of "reading is fundamental" mini-challenge on RuPaul's drag race

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

As an English teacher, this is frightening.

[Green Line]

Sounds like she needs to be removed from the classroom.  Way too emotionally unstable.

[Ferguson97]

No one is stopping kids from willingly reading these books outside of the classroom, its just that woke nonsense shouldn't be influenced by teachers.

The Republicans who want to defund public libraries and limit what books are available are stopping them.

[DaleCooper]

No one is stopping kids from willingly reading these books outside of the classroom, its just that woke nonsense shouldn't be influenced by teachers.

School used to be the place where kids were encouraged to seek out books. Now we’ve really done a full 180 to “if kids want to read, they’ll just have to do that on their own time?” That’s really the messaging your side wants to run with? Are you sure?

Yes, a lot of these types of people do want that to be the case. These nannies and helicopter parents believe that the purpose of having children is not to give another generation a chance at life, but rather to treat them as property and groom them into being the exact type of "person" that they want them to be. (I put person in quotes because these guys don't really treat their offspring as people, they treat them as pets. Some helicopter parents literally put their kids on leashes.) So of course the idea of a school providing access to information that they can't exercise Hitlerian control over is very scary to them.

[MasterJedi]

Time for Florida teachers to start getting 1984 and Animal Farm into every curriculum and draw parallels.

[Person Man]

Time for Florida teachers to start getting 1984 and Animal Farm into every curriculum and draw parallels.

Kids need to know that their parents are “falling for it”.  The Stop WOKE Act is literally worse than the PATRIOT Act because it isn’t just a dictatorial power grab against individual rights and liberties, it’s a dictatorial power grab against political rivals. It’s borne from the well of Satan’s lies known as the “Alt-Right”.

[Torie]

1. How long does it take to get books approved?

2. It appears that the teacher as an act of protest has not applied for approval.

3. Do we know what titles that he has on the shelf?

4. When a book is disapproved that seems politically motivated or bigoted or intolerant (no books on gays, etc.,), that would seem to be a better time to take off the gloves.

5. Have any books been disapproved to date that would reasonably fit into #4 above?

6. Is anyone monitoring what books are disapproved?