Between the World and Me: Why Did Parkway Schools BAN This Book?

ROCKFORD - At the end of school day on Sept. 24, 2020, former Parkway High School English teacher Casey McConahay received an email that made his stomach sink.

"Casey," the email read. "There have been concerns regarding the current novel you are reading. Please stop until we can have a conversation. Please remove all posts, materials, discussions and assignments related to this book."

The email from high school principal Brian Fortkamp confused and troubled McConahay. The book in question, "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is black, had been a part of his English 11 curriculum for two years.

"Between the World and Me" is a semi-autobiographical book written in the form of a letter to the author's 15-year-old son. The book chronicles the author's personal experiences and his evolving thoughts on race, the American dream and the realities associated with being black in the U.S. No parents of the students in McConahay's class had reached out to him with concerns, nor had he received requests for alternative materials.

McConahay was asked to stop using the book during Banned Books Week, an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. The event typically is held during the last week of September.

Less than a week later, McConahay received a letter from Fortkamp he had anticipated and dreaded.

"As you know, I have been reviewing whether or not your utilization of 'Between the World and Me' this school year in your English class is consistent with the parameters outlined in Board Policy 2240," Fortkamp wrote. "I have determined that your use of this book this year is not appropriate."

"Between the World and Me" was soon pulled from the hands of the 31 students in McConahay's English 11 class. Eventually, it was placed on hold from being taught at Parkway Local Schools.

The Daily Standard has spent eight months investigating banned books in local schools. Staff spoke with each superintendent in Mercer County, consulted with experts at the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, made multiple public records requests, reviewed dozens of documents, interviewed current and former staff at local schools and interviewed Coates, the book's author.

Despite the fact that all Mercer County school districts have virtually the same policies for handling public complaints and controversial issues, Parkway Local Schools District is the only district in the county that has removed books from classroom instruction.

Among the findings:

• Parkway Local Schools District has removed three books from classroom instruction since 2013 after parents complained the books violated the district's controversial topics policy.

• Parkway's public complaint policy has procedures in place for complaints about instructional materials, including filing a formal complaint, conducting a book review by a committee and allowing the board of education to decide whether the materials are appropriate or not. However, administrators have pursued complaints informally, meaning there is no documentation of complaints, input from the public or decision making by the school board involved.

• Administrators have removed books they have not read from classroom instruction.

• Former school board member and Rockford mayor Jeff Armstrong led the complaints against "Between the World and Me" in 2020 and "The Freedom Writer's Diary" in 2014, resulting in both books being removed. Armstrong did not have a child in either class "Between the World and Me" was being taught in.

• Teachers have been discouraged from using certain books in class, including books that mention sexual themes or content, profanity and other topics because they do not reflect the community's conservative values.

Superintendent Jeanne Osterfeld insisted the school district has not banned any books, but rather has placed the books on hold after parents raised concerns about the materials. Teachers are welcome to teach the books again, provided they can teach both sides of a controversial issue, Osterfeld said. Although the books are not being taught, Osterfeld said the books are still available in the school library.

When asked what a teacher would need to do to prove they could teach both sides of "Between the World and Me," Osterfeld said she did not know because she had not read the book and deferred to Fortkamp.

Fortkamp said the district's public complaint policy allows complaints about instructional materials to be pursued informally, and thus he saw no reason to push for formal procedures. Fortkamp said he never received any complaints himself and only heard of Armstrong's complaint when Osterfeld instructed him to investigate the matter.

School board president Tom Lyons, who was in favor of removing "The Freedom Writer's Diary" in 2014, declined to be interviewed. Other school board members including Melissa Burtch, Tara Patterson, Talan Bates and Deb Call did not return a request for comment.

Osterfeld and Fortkamp said they are within their rights to ban or remove books without formal procedures. Pat Corbett, Chief Executive Officer of NEOLA, a policy consulting company which provided the template for the district's policy handbook and five of Mercer County's six school districts, said any school's public complaint policy is open to interpretation.

"I'm not going to say whether it's good or bad, one way or the other," Corbett said. "We're a policy consultant, so we don't guide policy implementation. Different administrators at different times will look at policies differently."

Parkway, St. Henry, Marion Local, Fort Recovery and Celina school districts use NEOLA's consulting services for their policy handbook. Coldwater schools uses Ohio School Boards for the formation of its policies.

The removal of "Between the World and Me" at Parkway comes as educators, community members and elected officials across the U.S. debate how far teachers can go in teaching about race, history and adult themes.

More than 25 Republican-led states have passed or proposed restrictions on how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in opposition to critical race theory (CRT), an academic framework for examining systemic racism.

Developed by legal scholars in the 1970s, CRT examines slavery and how racism often affects American life today. It isn't directly taught in K-12 classrooms, but CRT opponents support bills such as Ohio's House Bill 322, which would ban its teaching.

Comparing districts

Some administrators, such as Fort Recovery Local Schools Superintendent Larry Brown, said they have not had any materials banned during their careers.

"In my 28 years as a school administrator including fifteen years of service as a public school superintendent, I have never had any books, textbooks or instructional materials banned," Brown said.

Marion Local Schools superintendent Mike Pohlman said students receive a syllabus at the beginning of each school year that lists the books they will be reading. Parents are given the opportunity to review this list and can work with the teacher to select an appropriate alternative text, he said.

Pohlman said in his 15 years as an administrator at Marion Local, he could not think of any books the board of education has banned.

Pohlman and superintendents at St. Henry, Fort Recovery and Coldwater school districts also did not report any complaints or challenges to materials during their tenure at the school districts. Coldwater superintendent Jason Wood said the closest example he could think of would be complaints about "Common Core" that were state- and county-wide in 2013.

Celina High School librarian Lynne Ray said one book had been challenged at Celina City Schools. Two parents and one Celina resident in May 2019 challenged "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, which was being taught in an English class at Celina High School. The three took issue with sexual language in the book. The book had been taught for seven years before the complaints.

"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" centers on Arnold Spirit Jr., a 14-year-old struggling to find acceptance and belonging in two vastly different communities: the Spokane reservation where he was raised and his majority white high school.

A five-member committee of librarians and parents reviewed the book and recommended the school board keep it in the curriculum. School board members agreed and voted to keep it.

Superintendent Ken Schmiesing could not think of other challenges or complaints to materials that were brought to the school board. Most complaints are resolved with the teacher before administration is involved, he said, as all teachers offer alternative materials students or parents can choose to read if they do not agree with the main book being used.

Five school districts in the county - Parkway, Marion Local, Coldwater, St. Henry and Celina - have clauses in their public complaint policies stating the district's preference is to rectify misunderstandings between the public and the district through informal, direct discussions. More formal procedures are employed only when informal meetings fail to resolve the differences.

Often, the goal of addressing complaints informally is to simultaneously hear complaints from the public while also protecting staff members from unnecessary harassment, keeping complaints and grievances as close to the origin of the complaint as possible.

All school districts in their public complaint policies outline formal procedures for complaints regarding instructional materials. All Mercer County school districts follow a similar procedure, with some slight differences.

In general, the formal procedures state criticism should be addressed to the building principal in writing. Upon receipt, the principal will form a review committee to evaluate the challenged material.

The committee's recommendation, according to instructions for formal procedures, should be reported to the superintendent in writing within 30 business days after the committee is formed. The superintendent then advises the complainant in writing of the committee's recommendation and advises the board of education of the action taken or recommended.

The complainant can appeal the decision within 30 business days through a written request to the superintendent, which the superintendent forwards to the school board. Finally, the school board reviews the case and advises the complainant in writing of its decision within 30 business days.

The public complaint policies of Marion Local, St. Henry, Celina and Fort Recovery school districts specifically state that no challenged material may be removed from curriculum except by action of the school board, and no challenged material may be removed solely because it presents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive to some. Parkway's formal procedures for complaints regarding instructional materials lacks this stipulation.

The policies of Marion Local, St. Henry, Celina and Fort Recovery also state materials cannot be withdrawn from use while being reviewed by the committee, and any school board action to remove materials will be accompanied by a statement from school board members explaining their reasoning for removal. The public complaint policies of Parkway and St. Henry state challenged materials can be withdrawn while being reviewed by the committee.

Although Parkway Local Schools has formal procedures outlined in its public complaint policy, superintendent Osterfeld said the policy allows for public complaints of any kind to be pursued informally, including matters regarding staff, district operations or instructional materials.

High school principal Fortkamp said he did not push for formal procedures because he did not receive any direct complaints about "Between the World and Me." Fortkamp said he also felt McConahay, the teacher, was not teaching both sides of the subject equitably and made the executive decision that McConahay could not teach the book.

Fortkamp, who said he had read the book, said he understood the book was about black suffrage. Teaching the other side of "Between the World and Me" would be up to the instructor who was teaching the book, he said.

"If this book is talking about black suffrage, then my thoughts would be - and understand that these are my thoughts - then you would do something to present that not all African American people are going through suffrage," Fortkamp said. "So are there success stories of others that did not go through that or have overcome that to get out of that situation? I can't sit here and prescribe how it needed to be taught."

Three books, eight years

Osterfeld said three books have been put on hold at Parkway Local Schools. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood was removed from curriculum during the 2013-2014 school year. "The Freedom Writers Diary" by Erin Gruwell was removed from curriculum during the 2014-2015 school year. Most recently, "Between the World and Me" was removed from curriculum in September 2020.

The Daily Standard filed several public records requests to Parkway administrators requesting the official complaints for all three books. Fortkamp initially said there were none.

"The school was made aware of parent concerns through parent phone calls to the school," Fortkamp said in an email. "The parents voiced their concern and the school then looked into the issues. After which the school decided that the books were not appropriate for the intended student groups."

Although no documentation was available, Osterfeld said she thought "The Handmaid's Tale" was removed after parents complained about vulgarity and sexual overtones in the book. Osterfeld said Fortkamp received one phone call with a concern.

Published in 1985, "The Handmaid's Tale" follows a woman named Offred, one of the group known as "handmaids" who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the ruling class of men in a strongly patriarchal, theocratic and totalitarian state that has replaced the U.S. government.

In 2014, Parkway reviewed and removed "The Freedom Writers Diary" from the freshman curriculum after Jeff Armstrong and his wife, Jennifer, at a school board meeting asked board members to remove the book from the class reading list. Osterfeld said Fortkamp received one other complaint from a family in person.

Fortkamp later located the official complaint filed in 2014 for "The Freedom Writers Diary." The complaint, a detailed 13-page document submitted by Jeff Armstrong, chronicled a page-by-page, line-by-line review of every mention of sex, violence, drug use and curse words in the book and several pages of negative reviews written about the book on GoodReads.com.

Written in 1999 by a group of students from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, and their teacher, the book contains the students' anonymous journal entries made after the students read "Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl" and "Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo."

At a school board meeting in October 2014, Jeff Armstrong asked board members to ban the book, taking issue with passages that mentioned racial slurs, sexual acts, abortion and profanity. He also opposed themes of "social justice" in the book. School board members told Jeff Armstrong to file a formal complaint.

Some members of the Parkway community supported removing "The Freedom Writers Diary" from class, and the school board at the time supported the recommendations of the review committee and former superintendent Greg Puthoff to remove the book from the teaching curriculum.

Review committee chair and former business teacher Kevin Browning in Nov. 2014 said committee members thought the book could be a great learning tool that would serve an older audience, but not the 83 freshman who were assigned the book.

At a November 2014 school board meeting, about 20 parents and students showed up to support the Armstrong family after their daughter said she felt singled out and had lost a friend after the book's removal. Jeff Armstrong also wanted the teacher to be disciplined after he found a blog credited to the teacher that criticized his family and the book's removal.

"No one has even batted an eye," Jeff Armstrong said at the November 2014 meeting. "A 15-year-old girl is up there crying because a teacher is harassing her and instead you are protecting the teacher. It's time we stopped protecting the teachers and start protecting our children."

"Between World and Me"

No official complaints were available for "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Between the World and Me." The only documentation supplied for "Between the World and Me" were text messages from Jeff Armstrong that were sent to Osterfeld last year.

Osterfeld later said she received four phone calls about "Between the World and Me" that were based around if the book was being presented in a balanced manner.

"I would like an explanation on this clearly politically biased book being read in our school," Jeff Armstrong wrote in a Sept. 24, 2020, text to Osterfeld. "It is clearly biased to anti police and indoctrination of the left mindset of being anti police and they are all racist and evil."

Shortly after Jeff Armstrong's texts were received, Fortkamp emailed McConahay and asked him to remove all posts, materials, discussions and assignments related to the book.

Jeff Armstrong in his texts cited the district's controversial issues policy as reason to remove the book from the curriculum. The controversial issues policy states the school board will permit the use of controversial materials so long as it is related to the course material and is age appropriate; does not intend to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view; and encourages open-mindedness and is conducted in a spirit of scholarly inquiry.

The policy also states the school will honor a written request for a child to be excused from a particular class and will be provided with alternate learning activities if a parent objects to the materials based on their religious beliefs or value system.

Fortkamp said in the past the school district has provided alternate learning materials when parents have objected to what their children were reading. However, the Armstrongs did not have a child in either class "Between the World and Me" was being taught in, so no alternative materials were offered.

When asked why Armstrong's complaint was treated with validity if he did not have children in those classes, Osterfeld and Fortkamp said the policy allows for any taxpayer or interested person to voice concerns about instructional materials.

When asked if administrators would consider reinstating the book if students and parents requested it, Osterfeld said she would not because parents do not dictate what is taught at the school district.

"Teachers pick their own supplemental materials," Osterfeld said. "Parents don't pick the supplementals."

"Between the World and Me" has won multiple awards, including the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2015 and the NAACP Image Award for outstanding literature in 2016. It is a No. 1 New York Times Bestseller and a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book has garnered nearly 290,000 ratings on Goodreads.com, with a rating of 4.37 out of 5 stars.

Fortkamp said the formal complaint process takes longer and said administrators wanted to handle the situation as quickly as possible so it would not be drawn out. That's not to say the formal process is burdensome, Fortkamp continued, but that treating public complaints informally allows administrators to give a verdict to the instructor in a reasonable amount of time so they can adapt their lesson plans, rather than taking weeks or months to make a decision.

However, a formal complaint would have given the public the opportunity to know the book had been challenged and voice their opinions, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. She opposes the informal process.

Caldwell-Stone argued that even if the policy allows for administrators to make executive decisions about instructional materials, administrators should follow formal procedures in the name of transparency and hearing the voices of all taxpayers equally.

"We've observed it frequently, particularly where a single parent will go to administration and complain about a book, and rather than follow policy or involve the community in the conversation, the default is to avoid controversy and simply pull the books out of the hands of kids," Caldwell-Stone said.

"Without following policy, you don't have transparency, you don't have due process, you take everyone else's voice out of the equation. There should be an opportunity for everyone to understand that the book has been challenged, everyone should have a chance to weigh in on the matter (and understand) how the book was selected," Caldwell-Stone said.

Caldwell-Stone said the American Library Association and the Office for Intellectual Freedom fully support the right for any parent or guardian to be in charge of what their child is reading. However, she said a parent's decision for their family should not be applied wholesale to the entire community.

"That's why policy should be in place - it gives due process and transparency to the whole consideration of an individual's concern about a book," Caldwell-Stone said. "So that there's a whole understanding of where other people in the community land, who should have an equal say, if you're talking from the viewpoint of a parent in the school system or a taxpayer in the school district."

The Parkway Education Association filed a grievance against Osterfeld and Fortkamp in October 2020 after the book was removed. The grievance alleged they violated the PEA's collective bargaining agreement because a formal, written complaint was never received and Fortkamp, not Osterfeld, should have handled any complaints.

The grievance later was dropped after the school board agreed to remove any and all documentation from McConahay's personnel file and review "Between the World and Me" before the end of the school year.

A review committee was formed, and in February of this year the committee determined the book was not appropriate for use.

"At this point with the changes in the world today, this book needs to be collected and not taught," notes from the review committee read. "Need to consider any other politically charged topics."

Osterfeld and Fortkamp said they had not received complaints about "Between the World and Me" the two previous years in which McConahay taught the book. The administrators said that's likely because the book may not have been viewed as controversial until 2020, when police violence and demonstrations made headlines around the country.

However, McConahay contends that 2020 is not the first time the U.S. has had such conversations. Even if it were, McConahay said that's all the more reason to keep the book in class.

"I chose that text two years ago when there was a controversy about Colin Kaepernick kneeling for national anthems," McConahay said. "So it seemed like a relevant idea to explore then, and it's just as relevant now, I think."

McConahay said he was quietly discouraged by Fortkamp and other administrators from using "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy around 2011-2013. He said he remembered "The God of Small Things" was called pornographic by some community members, as was "The Handmaid's Tale."

Before teaching "Between the World and Me," McConahay said he used "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain as a teaching mechanism. McConahay said it was a tough book to begin the school year with. The book was published in the U.S. in 1885.

"As much as I tried to make the discussion of slavery feel applicable to the students' lives, to them that was something that happened 150 years ago," he said. "So that was kind of the goal with 'Between the World and Me.' I wanted to choose a book that the students would engage with and kind of build those lessons to address things that seemed more in line with the kind of experiences they were having and the conversations they were hearing around them."

Even in 2014 when "The Freedom Writers Diaries" was challenged, McConahay in a letter to the Parkway school board wrote of the challenges he faced teaching "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

"Few students read the book with interest, primarily because they don't see their experiences represented by the text's characters," McConahay wrote. "Ideally, I would replace this novel with one that students relate to, but fears of parent challenges make this impossible."

In his letter, McConahay protested the Jeff Armstrongs objection to "The Freedom Writers Diaries." He also said repeated challenges to books and fears over parental complaints about instructional materials could send the wrong message.

"The implied message of parent challenges is that safe, not engaging, is what we should strive for in book selection," he wrote.

McConahay resumed teaching "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" after "Between the World and Me" was removed. When asked what teaching the other side of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" would look like, Fortkamp refused to compare the two.

"The complaint, well, I should say issue, that was brought up (with "Between the World and Me") was of its point in time of what was going on in society," Fortkamp said. "There's a difference in what was taking place in that point in time versus Huckleberry Finn. So I'm not going to compare these two books because there were other factors going on besides just the book."

To McConahay, "Between the World and Me" seemed like a safe bet. He said he knew some community members in the past did not like books with sexual themes or profanity, which "Between the World and Me" largely avoids.

Prior to the book being removed from his classroom, McConahay said his students would engage in healthy discussions about a sensitive subject they might have heard adults argue about.

"Maybe it was just those two years that I was able to teach in full that I had great students, but they had a lot to say about these topics that everyone's talking about, but also a lot of openness to the ideas of their classmates as well," he said. "I think that's a pretty significant thing."

McConahay said he had been told the complaint was about "social justice" and "Black Lives Matter." After the complaint was made, Fortkamp asked how the book was being utilized in class and what McConahay was doing to teach both sides of "Between the World and Me" equally.

McConahay said this puzzled him - the book is one man's thoughts about the world and his place in it, so what is the other side of someone's personal experiences? More importantly, McConahay said, he had never heard the term "social justice" used pejoratively before.

Osterfeld and Fortkamp also stated that "Between the World and Me" did not meet Parkway's community values, part of the litmus test for adopting course materials for Parkway and many school districts.

When asked what the Parkway community's values are, Osterfeld said the community has conservative values, which she said meant respectful of police officers, teachers and family. Fortkamp agreed, adding the community does not want profanity or sexual themes in the curriculum. He also said community members want "both sides" of subjects taught equally.

In the book review committee's notes, committee members asked McConahay what he was doing to balance "social justice" in his teachings. McConahay again said he was not sure what the other side of social justice would be. The committee asked if he promoted the agenda of Black Lives Matter in class, which McConahay said he did not.

A few days after he was told to stop using the book, McConahay emailed Fortkamp and offered to bring in local law enforcement to even out his curriculum.

"If I'm allowed to continue teaching the book - and if it would make the decision to let me teach the book easier to explain to the community - I'd be excited to invite a member of our local law enforcement community to speak with my students," he wrote on Sept. 28, 2020. "It might not make a difference, but I think that inviting an officer to speak to us might go a long way in countering misconceptions that community members might have."

However, Fortkamp said he did not think bringing in a member of law enforcement for a day was enough to make McConahay's lesson plan equitable.

"The complaint was that it was anti-cop, black suffrage, and I asked what (McConahay) was doing to present both sides and his first response was 'I don't see another side,' and that to me is a red flag," Fortkamp said. "That to me is still not quite enough. You're talking about a book that's controversial and you're going to spend 30 plus days on it, and you're going to offset that with one day of having a police officer come in?"

The same day McConahay offered to bring in local police offers to class, Fortkamp instructed McConahay to remove all mention of Banned Books Week from his classroom and to stop reading letters from authors of banned books, according to emails.

Fortkamp said he did not know it was Banned Books Week when he asked McConahay to remove the materials and thought McConahay was acting in retaliation after "Between the World and Me" was removed.

McConahay protested.

"The novel I teach during third quarter, 'Fahrenheit 451,' is a dystopian novel about a futuristic society in which all books are burned," he wrote to Fortkamp on Sept. 28. "I've taught that novel at Parkway for nine years without complaint, but if I'm not able to mention book banning and censorship, should I anticipate being asked to replace that book as well?"

Fortkamp forwarded the email to Osterfeld.

"Good question," the superintendent replied. "We need to get a list of all the books he is reading and do a thorough check on them all."

Osterfeld said McConahay's curriculum was reviewed in order to be proactive instead of reactive.

After 10 years of teaching at Parkway, McConahay left to take a position at Vantage Career Learning Center in Van Wert this summer.

"I decided that I didn't want to continue teaching at a school that promotes book banning," he said.

An interview with Coates

The 152-page "Between the World and Me" is not comfortable to read. Author Ta-Nehisi Coates does not pretend to give the reader solutions to the many questions on race and belonging he poses, nor does he offer optimism that racism can be separated from society as a whole.
  Coates said his book is not anti-white or anti-police. Even if it were, Coates said that should not be grounds to remove it from the classroom.

"Throughout my education I've read defenses of slavery. I've read anti-Semitic literature," Coates said. "If you only read things that you agree with, if we ban things basically that don't meet the world view that we would like our children to accept or to reflect, then we're circumscribing education. We're not even doing education; we're doing indoctrination."

Coates asserted indoctrination begins when children are allowed only to read books that validate one viewpoint. Literature is not meant to pump ideas into kids' brains that they thoughtlessly accept, he said. The purpose is to challenge kids and to get them to think in all sorts of different ways.

"It's very important to be confronted with views that you may not agree with," Coates said. "I've read articles by psychologists, who from the basis of IQ tests and data think that black people are genetically dumber than white people. I would hate for that literature to be banned. I need to know what other people's arguments are, even if I vehemently disagree with them."

Coates said he is passionate about the right to read and is less concerned about "Between the World and Me" being banned. Rather, Coates said his concern lies with the growing movement to ban, censor or prevent certain topics from being accessible to children in schools or libraries.

"There's a wave going through this country right now that wants to restrict what kids can read and what they can have access to," he said. "And this is very painful to me, because my primary education wasn't even in the classroom, it was in the library. When I was a kid from middle school to high school, (I was) in the public library and the library at my university, because that's a place I could explore a wide range of literature."

In "Between the World and Me," Coates writes to his then 15-year-old son, Samori. Now 20 and a college student, Coates said he expects his son to be challenged with differing points of view.

"When he was in high school and certainly when he's in college now, I wanted him to have a well-rounded education," he said. "I don't know how his education could be called well-rounded if it was simply things that I agreed with."