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Depew, New York
The Depew Board of Education voted 6-0 on March 4 to approve a controversial coming-of-age novel for llth-grade Regents English classes. With member Diane Benczkowski absent, the board accepted the recommendation of Superintendent Kimberly Mueller and a seven-member review committee to allow the students to read John Green's Looking for Alaska, which contains graphic language and sexual content. Speaking for the board, Steven Carmina, board president, said the "overriding factor" in the decision was that "we put out a choice to our parents."
The district sent parents a letter in January saying that the book has "some explicit sexual content" but adding that it "addresses very pertinent and relevant issues that young adults deal with," including drinking and driving, peer pressure, and coping with death. Of the 160 students eligible to read the book, 140 returned permission slips. Of those, only three students were denied permission to read the book. Twenty parents did not respond, according to Assistant Superintendent Susan Frey, chair of the review committee.
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, was offered as the alternate novel for the classes.
Looking for Alaska, which won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, tells the story of sixteen-year-old Miles Halter and his friends, including a teen girl, Alaska Young, at a boarding school in Alabama. Details can be found on the author's website, sparksflyup.com. "I Am Not a Porno grapher," the author's video on YouTube, addressed the Depew controversy.
Speakers during the public comment period at the meeting included Gabrielle Miller, who was the first to publicly...