John Chrastka
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Fighting Public School Book Bans with the Civil Rights Act
The First Amendment is a crucial defense against book bans, particularly those targeting LGBTQ+ stories, critical race theory, and BIPOC authors. However, schools often navigate around these protections through "educational discretion." Beyond the First Amendment, the Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act's Title VI and IX provide avenues to challenge bans based on race and sex discrimination. A notable case in Georgia's Forsyth County School District demonstrates how these civil rights statutes can combat bans, offering a more direct path to restoring banned books. This approach highlights the importance of considering discriminatory impacts over intent in the fight against book bans, providing a potentially more effective strategy for upholding students' rights to information.
Parsing Religion in Public Schools
The First Amendment's Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses create a constitutional balance: the government cannot establish a state religion nor impede individual religious practices. This delicate equilibrium has posed challenges for public schools, which must remain religiously neutral while not infringing upon personal religious expression. Historical Supreme Court rulings have defined this balance by prohibiting school-led religious activities, while recent decisions have leaned towards protecting individual religious expressions, such as personal prayer, even in public school settings.
Engaging Parents in the Future of School Libraries
Parents play a crucial role in the ecosystem of school libraries. Their advocacy, support, and involvement are often key to securing the budget to maintain and expand library services. Engaging parents effectively means communicating the multifaceted value of the library not just to individual students but to the entire school community.
Elevating the Visibility of School Library Programs Through Social Proof
Empower your school library advocacy through the power of social proofs. Discover how endorsements drive coalitions and funding success.
The Annual Report as an Advocacy Technique
The culture, needs, and interests of schools, students, and faculty are always changing and evolving. Because of this, funding and budget allocation must be reexamined regularly. While budget reallocations can free up a lot of extra money from unnecessary spending, many worthwhile efforts are caught in the crossfire. Making annual (or even monthly) reports on […]
So What Rights Does a Student Shed at the Schoolhouse Gate?
Understanding Students’ Rights to Speech and Information under the First Amendment by Catherine E. Ferri*, Guest Blogger^ Understanding a K-12 student’s rights has always been complicated. The Supreme Court famously wrote in 1969 that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” In that landmark case, […]
ESSER Funds Sunset in September 2024. What Does That Mean for School Libraries?
If you’re involved in public schools, you’ve probably heard by now that the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds will end in September 2024. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds were created to assist schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While a statutory end to pandemic relief funding has […]
Maximizing Title IV Part A Funds for School Libraries in a Post-ESSER World
Technology and learning resources are critical to enhancing student achievement in today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape. However, many school libraries need to take advantage of a valuable funding resource that could help them achieve their goals. Title IV, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provides Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants […]
Complex Perceptions of School Libraries and Librarians
The EveryLibrary Institute NFP and Book Riot conducted a series of surveys in late 2023 to investigate parents’ perceptions of school libraries and school librarians in the United States. The surveys were comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics such as the importance of school librarians, access to books, parental involvement in education and reading, […]
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