In February 2022, the Forsyth County School (FCS) District banned eight books from their schools’ libraries and curriculum due to “explicit content” mentioned in the novels. 

“Administratively we reviewed the books, and we have over 500,000 books in our media centers in Forsyth County Schools, but there were 8 of them we determined were not appropriate to be in public schools,” FCS Superintendent Dr. Jeff Bearden told Channel 2 Action News.

Forsyth County Schools bans 8 books they say are inappropriate for students – WSB-TV Channel 2 – Atlanta #gapol https://t.co/d0TMcp8VEp

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The Forsyth County School Administration removed the following novels from both high schools and middle schools throughout the county: 

• All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
• Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
• L8r, g8r by Lauren Myracle
• Me Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
• Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
• Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle

The official administrative process for removing books in the Forsyth County Schools’ Media Centers can be found here; however, a special process was followed for the removal of these books, which relied on the expertise and discretion of county officials.

According to Forsyth County Director of Communications Jennifer Caracciolo, “At the direction of the superintendent, Mike Evans (Chief Technology Officer) and his team were asked to review books for sexually explicit content. The books were selected by the staff involved in the review based on their knowledge of prior book challenges due to sexually explicit content in other districts.”

The FCS Board of Education is involved in choosing what books enter its schools’ libraries as well as what books should be removed from the libraries, in all grade levels. 

For each Forsyth County School, the media specialist or staff member in charge of the media center chooses which books to add to their library based on the needs of individual schools’ students and staff. 

“The way I pick up books is I look at what kind of books are needed to be on the shelves. Do we have a variety of authors, a variety of content? [For example] I knew that we needed a lot of science-based books,” an FCS Media Specialist, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. “So I looked for a lot of readable nonfiction this year to put those on the shelf so it would supplement what the science teachers are doing. And I started with that this year because I saw something was lacking. 

The process for selecting materials for FCS Media Centers already involves a tremendous amount of expert discretion.

“[For every book I want to add], I go to a website called Common Sense Media and it tells me all different kinds of things about the books,” the media specialist said. “It tells me if they’re sexually explicit, if they are trying to get students to buy something, if there are racial issues, or if it has foul language. Afterward, I look and see if I think it’s appropriate [for our school] based on their reviews…I also go to Kirkus and the School Library Journal and look at their reviews for the same thing.”

Additionally, every school within the county has a media committee (consisting of an administrator, three teachers, one parent, and one student) to review all the books added to the media center. This committee allows for the input of teachers as well as students, so they can be the voice of the community. 

Ultimately, in Forsyth County Schools, media centers work to ensure that their book supports the needs of their students and staff. While some books were banned due to explicit content, FCS will continue to stock its shelves with materials that will benefit the learning experience of each and every student.

“As a media specialist, I want our collection to represent everyone,” said the FCS Media specialist. “And I want our books, authors, and characters to be a direct reflection of the people who are in my school.”