FLEMING ISLAND – The Clay County School District continues to grapple with a new state law regulating instructional materials in schools.

At a special meeting last week, the handbook was set to be amended to account for House Bill 1467, which generally gives parents more say in their children’s instructional materials and the ability to flag what they believe is inappropriate. The bill also established the review and approval of all publications maintained in a district’s libraries as well as listing the materials on a website.

Board Chairwoman Mary Bolla read a lengthy statement with Federal Communications Commission guidelines and said Clay welcomes parent involvement, participation and feedback.

Later in the meeting, Bolla said the district can’t account for an inappropriate book purchased more than a decade ago slipping through the cracks, but it can use a “fine tooth comb” to examine district material now.

“As a former teacher, we always welcome parent involvement,” Bolla said. “It is critical to the education of our kids.”

Advocate Bruce Friedman attempted to read and exhibit what he deemed profane material at a school board meeting last month and made national headlines when his microphone was cut after he was warned to stop numerous times.

Friedman addressed board members again last week and asked if any materials had been removed. Friedman said he prepared 67 challenges to district materials and there are potentially hundreds more.

“Streamline the process by which parent involvement can be welcomed into your board, into your district and county, and this will be cleaned up in no time at all,” Friedman said.

Superintendent David Broskie thanked commenters for their time and said inappropriate materials should not be in front of students. He said some material had been removed already and Clay County District Schools currently has a policy for objectionable material, Broskie said.

“In the diverse world that we live in, people’s opinions are different,” Broskie said. “So, we want to hear your opinion as to why (the material) is objectionable.”

Board Member Beth Clark said the district is united and has established its participation in the process.

“We’re all working on the same team. We have a process. We have a very open-door policy in Clay and we can’t say that of other districts,” Clark said.

However, the policy had already been approved and the vote was to advertise and notice of public hearing to approve amendments. Making changes last week would have delayed its advertising potentially to September.

Board Member Ashley Gilhousen pushed for delaying the item, due to concerns she had with the policy. The motion was withdrawn and moved to Aug. 4 meeting.

In other business, board members approved the annual Mental Health Assistance Allocation Plan and renewed its contract with education platform PowerSchool with unanimous votes.

“It outlines the mental health resources for the district,” Broskie said of the allocation.

At Tuesday’s agenda review meeting, Broskie presented the case of a book that was bought in 2005 and not checked out since 2017. He said librarians have the opportunity to remove books and parents can use district platforms to receive notifications about materials their children check out.

“It should be up to the parent to decide if that book is a book appropriate for their family values and their particular family structure, that is the height of transparency in dealing with this issue,” Broskie said.

Chief Academic Officer Roger Dailey said the districts are receiving lists from advocacy groups. He said some removing or keeping of books will be disputed due to the subjective nature of the issue. Another challenge is that the law went into effect July 1, while librarians haven’t returned to work, Dailey added, and the law didn’t come with additional funding.

“I do forecast, once we get through this moment, on the back-end, dealing with things that are more opinion-based like something that comes up every like ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’” Dailey said. “ … The steps we take are going to impact that, so I want to be very careful on how we go forward with that.”