PA: Penncrest School Board Member: "I Don't Care What The Law Says"
Penncrest is a small rural district up the road from me, a district that has been mirroring the reading suppression battles of the more famous Central Bucks School District (and by mirror, I mean that some folks on the Penncrest board appear to be literally copying some of the Central Bucks work).
But Central Bucks is a big district in the busy part of the state, and Penncrest is a tiny district up in the wilderness, so its not getting much attention. But its worth paying attention to, because here in the rural school region, its not unusual for board members to say the quiet part out loud because they dont realize they shouldnt. That happens a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the rest of the state doesnt pay much attention to what rural districts do. Someday Ill tell you the story of a local district that fired a teacher for being gay, didnt bother to cover that reason with even a tiny fig leaf, and was really surprised when they were dragged into court and lost.
Penncrest has been trying to wield a tiny tattered fig leaf over its motivations for a new set of rules aimed at getting LGBTQ+ books out of its libraries, even as some board members have been quite clear about what they mean by sexualized content, and while were at it, all that racism stuff, too.
Board member David Valesky on LGBTQ books in the library:
Besides the point of being totally evil, this is not what we need to be teaching kids. They arent at school to be brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is okay. Its [sic] actually being promoted to the point where its even cool.
https://buckscountybeacon.com/2023/03/penncrest-school-board-member-i-dont-care-what-the-law-says/