Orange Unified Restores Library App After Suspension Due to Inappropriate Book

A newly donated LGBT book is displayed in the library at Nystrom Elementary School in Richmond, Calif., on May 17, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Orange Unified School District restored students’ access to a digital library app Feb. 3 after suspending it last week at the request of a parent who said they found a book with inappropriate content—including explicit language, sex, and rape—in their elementary child’s digital library.

Interim Superintendent Edward Velasquez announced a temporary suspension of the digital library app Sora Jan. 29, he said, to allow staff to review it, prompting praise from some parents concerned about inappropriate material and outrage from others worried about censorship.

Upon review, staff found four books were mislabeled for the wrong age group by their publishers, Velasquez said during a Feb. 2 board meeting. They also found a glitch that allowed some accounts access to books of all age levels.

A meeting at the Orange Unified School Board in Orange on Feb. 2, 2023. (Micaela Ricaforte/The Epoch Times)

The district addressed the issues and added parental controls, according to Velasquez.

The superintendent added the book in question has now been properly categorized as young adult—and no other books were removed from the app.

“Virtually libraries are critical resources for our students. I appreciate the staff who worked critically and diligently to allow us to provide critical access to grade-level appropriate materials to our students once again,” the superintendent said.

At the center of the issue is a young adult novel called The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg, which a parent said during a Jan. 19 board meeting she found downloaded on her second grader’s school-issued iPad.

The novel—which centers on a same-sex relationship between two teen boys—has much explicit language and many sexual themes, including a rape scene and another where characters discuss the definition of “rape” and “penetration,” according to the parent, who read quotes from the book at the January meeting.

Subsequently, the board, whose new conservative majority recently appointed Velasquez as interim superintendent after terminating its previous superintendent last month, asked him to shut down the app and conduct a review.

Parent Reactions

The parent said during the Jan. 19 meeting she was glad the board has brought in administrators who would make such a change.

“I think it is shameful ... the previous administrator knowingly kept this app on thousands of kinder[garten] through 6th-grade iPads, exposing them to sexually explicit material even though they were aware of issues,” the parent said. “There is a lot from the past board and administration I do not agree with. I want change, I voted for change, and I am happy the new board is making change.”

Other parents who disagreed with the board’s handling of the situation likened the suspension to a book ban.

“You are simply censoring books that you find to be objectionable, and imposing your decision on all [district] parents ... throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” one parent said during public comment Feb. 2.

Some said the suspension disrupted learning for students who used books on the app for projects and reports.

“The students who’ve been reading [books] in Sora suddenly found their access cut off, and now their work is wiped out,” another parent said at the same Feb. 2 meeting. “This is unacceptable ... to remove a vital teaching tool.”

Trustee Reactions

Trustees Rick Ledesma, John Ortega, Madison Miner, and Angie Rumsey, who supported the app’s suspension, took the opportunity to comment on the issue during the February meeting.

Rumsey said she wanted students to “have access to all books with parent controls and filters that are 100 percent effective.”

“Parents should have the right to tell their child what they can and cannot read,” she said. “Schools in the district are responsible for ensuring books are categorized appropriately with a good filtering system in place and I certainly hope that is the case moving forward.”

Trustees Andrea Yamasaki, Ana Page, and Kris Erickson, who opposed the app’s ban, expressed frustration.

“This is politics at its best and I’m just sad for this district,” Erickson said.

Ultimately, Velasquez said, the district aims to give parents control of the content to which their children are exposed.

“At the end of the day, it is my hope that parents are aware of and speak to their children about the type of media they are consuming at home, and to discuss and align with their parental expectations,” he said.