Billings Schools Criticized for “Assassination Classroom” Book in Libraries
There's a book that talks about school shootings and killing teachers? And it's on the school library bookshelves in Billings, Montana?
At least one parent in Billings plans on sounding off at the School District 2 School Board meeting on Monday night. I've heard others are also planning to attend.
Jessie Browning called in to our radio show Monday morning to explain why the book series "Assassination Classroom" is so concerning. She says "Assassination Classroom" is actually one in 21 of the series. She says the West High School library has all of the books, while the Senior High library has 10 of the books.
Jessie Browning: It's all about students coming into the public school and doing various means to try to assassinate the teacher, including all of them bringing guns and shooting up the place.
She is also encouraging other members of the community to show up at the school board meeting tonight as well.
Jessie Browning: The meeting tonight is just a routine school board meeting, and they're not going to specifically be addressing this book. There's going to be a separate appeals meeting coming up. However, my appeal is to ask everyone in the community that is a concerned parent, or a community member, if you would come to the meeting tonight- make your presence be known and show support- they're going to go over the book review and book selection policy. This is the problem here- those policies are making it so that you can never get a book removed, no matter how violent it is, no matter how pornographic it is.
The book has also come under fire in states like Wisconsin and Florida for violence and sexualized content, as Fox News reports:
One illustration in the first book depicts a young woman in a short dress with a small holster strapped to her left upper thigh while she straddles a man laying on his back on a mattress as she aims a handgun at him. Another illustration shows a group of students all pointing guns at their alien teacher, with the page titled "Killing in the Homeroom," according to Book Looks.
Here is the audio of Jessie Browning's phone call:
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