(KNSI) — A small number of parents have pulled their kids from a central Minnesota school district’s English class over a controversial book.
The Sartell-St. Stephen School District incorporated the book Dear Martin by Nic Stone into its 9th grade English curriculum during the 2020-2021 school year. The book replaced the classic novel To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee.
According to the book’s description, Dear Martin is a “fictional story about an Ivy League-bound African American student named Justyce who becomes a victim of racial profiling. He struggles to reconcile the fact that he’s a good kid with suddenly being in police handcuffs. In the months that follow, Justyce confronts injustices and micro-aggressions he experiences at his mostly white prep school and the fallout from his detainment.”
Late last year, several residents and a few parents expressed concern over the book and its message.
Steve Kron, a parent who pulled his children out of District 748, read the book and says he doesn’t think the book belongs in school, calling it inappropriate, and adding, “the culminating event of the book is when one of the main characters, who is an African American male, is murdered by an off-duty police officer and I believe there was six different incidences of police violence against these kids in that book. And all of them [were] portrayed, I feel, very one-sided. The book is also, I think, inappropriate in terms of content from a sexual perspective. There is a lot of normalizing of sexual behavior of most high school kids, and I think there are 144 instances of profanity within the book, nine times using the N-word or a variation of it.”
District 748 Superintendent Dr. Jeff Ridlehoover says the book’s lessons are meant to give students a different perspective of the world.
“It is important for students to investigate to discover to really have an introspective look at topics that are deemed controversial it’s good for our young adults to be able to be exposed to things that might be different than their normal lived experience.”
He says reading books like Dear Martin allows young students to grow as individuals.
“It is not our job to tell kids how or what to think but it’s our job to allow them to think and to discuss and to draw their own conclusions and opinions. And that’s the work that’s really important to us.”
Parents we spoke with said they understand why some parents may be upset about some aspects of the book, but agree that it’s important to explore different perspectives and expose young people to lives different than their own. One parent said it’s good to “get out of our bubbles and see things from a different point of view.”
Ridlehoover says he knows some parents were uncomfortable with the material and those families were given the option to have an alternative lesson plan.
District 748 didn’t have an alternative lesson plan available for students. The families were told that they could leave the district, find an online option or they could create their own curriculum, which the district would need to approve.
Kron says the group Kids Over Politics 748 worked with a professional to create a different lesson plan.
“They worked with that professional to create a curriculum and worked with the district to get that curriculum pre-approved so that we had this alternative option. They also put together, in a usable format, what the online options are if parents want to pursue them and really made that option available.”
The students who opt out of reading Dear Martin will read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
That book is described as carrying “a message to humanity about the importance of knowledge and identity in a society that can so easily be corrupted by ignorance, censorship, and the tools designed to distract from the realities of our world.”
The plan to allow students to read Farenheit 451 was approved in December. Since then, school officials say about five parents pulled their kids from class. Sartell has about 380 freshmen in the district.
“I think it’s important that we realize this is a partnership with families because these children are our most prized possessions and it’s important that when families send their children off to school that they’re comfortable with not only who they’re with but what they’re doing,” said Dr. Ridlehoover.
While lesson plans change from year to year at this point, the district says has no plans to drop the book from its freshman English course. The district could revise some lessons around the book if they feel it’s appropriate.
KNSI News Director Jennifer Lewerenz contributed to this story.
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