The Book Challenge Committee
After receiving the Reconsideration Form from a complainant, the next step is to organize a committee.
The committee's job is to review the form, the complaint, and the policies around a book challenge to make a recommendation to the school's superintendent.
Identify Key Stakeholders
The first step is to organize members of a committee. Identify the following participants, and ask for volunteers from:
- The Divisional Librarian/Head Librarian = Facilitator
- Administrator of the School Division
- Teacher from the grade level of compliant (one that is different from a homeroom teacher of the student to avoid bias)
- Counselor, if needed
- Other librarians from the school
- Any other persons deemed necessary by the facilitator
Scheduling
Schedule the meeting a week or two (at the most) after all materials are shared with the committee. Face to face is usually preferred these days, but meeting virtually is also a good way to record and maintain a record of the conversation.
Consider what is best for your situation and make the decision of what works best for your book challenge committee.
In your welcome letter to the committee, instruct them to make a copy of the form and send a PDF copy back to you in order to organize it for the meeting.
Forms and Docs
One way to communicate with the committee is to organize all necessary documents in one place and share it out.
An introductory letter is shown below.
For this sample, a Google Drive folder was used to contain all links, policies, and forms.
