SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. — A group of people plans to attend the Spotsylvania County School Board meeting Monday evening with one particular issue in mind: banned books.
The group is called Supports of Spotsylvania Public Schools, or SSPS for short. Members plan to attend the school board meeting for a silent protest, they are called a "read-in."
The protest comes after a rise in moves to ban or challenge books at school districts across the country and Spotsylvania County School Board Superintendent Mark Taylor's suggestion to close school libraries and lay off all 63 school librarians.
That plan did not make it to the final budget.
Jeff Kent with SSPS explains the group is concerned the board may enter a new policy that would automatically remove any book that is challenged from school shelves immediately, putting the power of removing books in the hands of any person who fills out a form.
The silent protest is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. at the School Board office and end at 5:30 p.m. when the board meeting is slated to start.
Following the "read-in," protesters plan to attend the meeting and speak out against the school board's "continued attempts to remove books from the school libraries based on the challenge of one person."
In 2021, Spotsylvania school librarians removed books that were deemed "sexually explicit" after a parent complained of finding shocking titles on sexuality, faith, and race. The school board voted unanimously to remove the books, with two members even advocating burning the offensive books.
The American Library Association reported this spring the largest number of attempted book bans since it began tracking that 20 years ago, far overshadowing previous years’ numbers, and more than the previous two years combined.
“There's always been some amount of book banning,” said Will Creeley, legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “But this is unprecedented. It is a tsunami, it is an avalanche of censorship.”
In the last year in the DMV, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Spotsylvania County Public Schools have all taken books off the shelves, including titles with LGBTQ+ themes.