VERO BEACH, Fla. — A tense meeting took place on Monday at the School District of Indian River County school board meeting.
Many parents and advocates bringing their concerns before the board on what students are being exposed to.
Among the discussion books some say are explicit and still on school shelves, as well as African-American history standards about slavery.
One by one people read nearly 40 titles and quotes they feel need to be removed from schools.
"Point of order, this is too obscene, I'm sorry," Jacqueline Rosario with District 2 said.
Many of the quotes from the book caused SDIRCChairwoman Dr. Peggy Jones to declare a content warning during many people's comments.
At points board members disagreed if they should be read aloud at all.
"If there is a content warning we're going to give it for our children, we will all make a decision at the end of this looking at this how long the book has been on the shelf, when was it ordered," Jones said.
Jennifer Pippin with Moms for Liberty of the Indian River Chapter said all the books read at the meeting were challenged and put back on the shelves in 2021.
Now they're challenging them again with new laws, and some are pending.
"Content warning or not, if an individual is stopped from reading a book during a public hearing, then that book is in fact removed," Superintendent Dr. David Moore said.
Continual quotes and response by the crowd caused Jones to call a 10-minute recess.
Also brought before the board were issues with new African-American standards regarding slavery.
"Which one of you on that board has ever spent a day black?" Anthony Brown, the president of the Indian River County Branch of the NAACP, said. "How dare any of you tell me about black history, how dare you minimize what it has done."
People siding with the local NAACP pushing the school board to reject the standards to the department of education, but not all agree.
"I agree that maybe this could've been phrased better, but some slaves did develop skills that benefited them when they became free," Betsy DiBenedetto said. "This criticism has been repeated so many times for the purpose to divide us and promote hate."
In a statement last wee,k Cailey Myers, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education said: "If you take the time to actually read the standards in full, you would see that we show a wholly open and honest retelling of African American history – the good, the bad and the ugly."
