When Books Are Pawns

Were five school books removed from the curriculum in Mat-Su District Schools in an act of revenge?

How did it get to this — five books, commonly selected for High School English courses, that had been used in this district for years, suddenly deemed too controversial? How does a School Board in far-too-often forgotten Alaska, suddenly become the focus of America’s literary ire? How do seven people elected to consider school calendars, note price increases in canteens, and approve out-of-county field trips suddenly become thrust into the international spotlight?

These things don’t happen overnight, and I have been trying to trace it back a little bit. Watching the video coverage of the Mat-Su Schools District Board Meeting where the books were removed from the English Elective reading list on the 22nd, it feels like there was a hint of it in a passing remark from Ole Larson.

Mr. Larson seemed unable to understand why the books weren’t simply taken out of the school if they were controversial. He makes a couple of references to a discussion in a Board meeting the previous year, and to an incident where a teacher had made poor choices in reading material. He spoke of how the School Board could not afford a repeat of that controversy.

In researching this, I found this piece in the Frontiersman. While Mr. Larson’s comment wasn’t direct, I believe it was a reference to this, probably the most controversial meeting of the year. Having watched the School Board meeting of June 12th, I find myself increasingly convinced that the seeds of this recent book removal stem directly from that meeting.

Jason Marvel was an English teacher, soccer and basketball coach in the Mat-Su Schools District from 2001 to 2012, becoming assistant principal there. He was initially appointed interim principal at Burchell High School in 2015, and in just 4 years, Mr. Marvel had overseen a turn around on many fronts, not least helping improve the graduation rate from 25% to a provisional estimate of 87% for 2018/19. He was the outstanding candidate for the move up to Wasilla High School. Superintendent Dr. Monica Goyette recommended him to the board, who approved him at the May 22nd meeting (from 1h54), the the only abstention, Kelsey Trimmer, owing to a family member previously working under him. The process took less than 3 minutes from the motions’ proposal to conclusion of the vote, most of the time spent by Dr. Welton and Superintendent Goyette praising his work in turning Burchell around.

At the meeting of June 6th, there was an executive session on procedural matters (from 56m on it’s just a title screen). The executive session lasted 45 minutes, during which the Board was in contact with the Board attorney. A second executive session was held towards the end of the meeting under the heading “Superintendent Evaluation”. In the agenda, it was listed as:

AS 44.62.310 & BP 9321: Matters, the immediate knowledge of which would clearly have an adverse effect upon the finances of the government unit; subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of any person, provided the person may request a public discussion; matters which by law, municipal charter, or ordinance are required to be confidential; matters of confidential legal counsel or pending litigation.

The Board entered this session at 8.09pm, and voted to conclude it at 9.21. While there is no detail for either of these executive sessions in the minutes, the second section ends with the following in bold print: “Member Ponder requested to return to the future items section of the agenda and add an item to the June 12 agenda to rescind the prior vote for Wasilla High School Principal with an executive session prior to that action item. Member Larson seconded the request.”

The following week, in the meeting on June 12th, we get the fireworks. Part B of the third item of the agenda is an amendment to the Superintendent’s contract simply extending it by a year, which should have been a routine matter. There is no discussion or objection raised — the whole thing is less than a minute of business (about 6m in), but nevertheless, Thomas Bergey, Ryan Ponder, and Mr. Larson, vote no.

Next on the agenda is listed point 4, Executive Session to discuss personnel matter, followed by the ominous Agenda Item 5, Rescind the May 22, 2019 Vote — Wasilla High School Principal Hire.

For the executive session, Mr. Marvel was invited to be present as it was his appointment that was discussed. In response to a letter he received from the Board about this executive session to discuss the possible rescinding of his appointment, he said:

I object to having any discussion of my position or assignment in executive session, and request a public session discussion.

Furthermore, he also requested that public comments be included. Quite the coup-de-theatre, and it becomes rapidly clear that Mr. Marvel knows exactly what he’s doing.

According to the details that Superintendent Goyette established at the beginning of the executive session, a board member (Mr. Ponder, though initially unnamed) raised concerns on May 23rd — the day after his unanimous appointment — and requested that these be discussed properly at Board level. Mr. Ponder noted the following:

• The use in 2013 of two short stories, ‘Welcome To The Monkey House’ by Kurt Vonnegut, and ‘The Girl With The Blackened Eye ‘ by Joyce Carol Oates.
• A 2004 directive from the Principal to stop reading Jose Saramago’s Blindness in class. He had complied with this.

The administration led by Superintendent Goyette also conducted a review of the issue, and added to the list a 2010 investigation about inappropriate instructional materials — this turned out to be certain posters on the wall of the classroom. Among other things this parent had a problem were:

• the use of the play, Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon
• analysis of a quote by Jimi Hendrix
• reading of some Harlem Renaissance works (particularly an essay by Gloria Naylor exploring racial slurs)
• discussion of the word “Fuck” (without speaking it) in terms of the meaning and use of the word evolving over time
• an exercise called “Take a Stand”, where students were invited to take stances and defend them, including whether gay couples should be entitled to the same rights as straight couples.

These complaints were fully investigated in 2010, and the investigation found that he had not violated any Board policies, state or federal law, teaching practices standards, or any other requirement for teaching in Alaska. However, they recommended creating an approved reading curriculum for the core English courses in future to avoid these problems. This wasn’t extended to include the elective courses at the time.

As a substitute teacher for Mr. Marvel in 2013, Mr. Ponder had been set to teach the Vonnegut story for an elective class: the two discussed the story on the phone on at least one occasion. Mr. Ponder expressed concern to the class about the story, and the class replied that the Oates story the previous week was much worse. It appears that Mr. Ponder did not complain formally at the time, and Mr. Marvel had been unaware of any complaint.

Superintendent Goyette expressed her disappointment with Mr. Marvel’s choices for reading, and that she felt that they did not reflect the values of the community. However, her recommendation that he be appointed principal of Wasilla High School stood. She also recommended creating a curriculum reading list for the elective courses. This is the reading list that was brought before the Board in April 2020.

Mr. Ponder asked Superintendent Goyette if there were any limitations placed on that curriculum. In response, Superintendent Goyette noted that the initial investigation showed that without an approved list, the teacher could not be held punitively accountable. Furthermore, the previous investigation found case law — Parducci v Rutland — which involved “Welcome To The Monkey House”. Superintendent Goyette quoted some elements of the findings of that case, and included the line:

This situation illustrates how easily arbitrary discrimination can occur when public officials are given unfettered discretion to decide what books should be taught and what books should be banned.

Prescient words for this forum from just under a year ago. Mr. Ponder asked in what state the ruling had been made, and for some reason, the response of Alabama appeared to provoke laughter in the gallery at the meeting.

Mr. Larson asked again if the District had control over the curriculum, and Superintendent Goyette said that while English elective classes did not have an approved list, parents were asked to sign a list of the readings. Mr. Larson returned to the vetting of the books for all courses, but Ray Michaelson noted the topic of the session was a personnel matter, rather than a curriculum matter. Here is another germ for what was to transpire this year.

The discussion here grinds on to the question of whether the Board can approve or rescind a recommendation for Principal. The Board members who were more active in the discussion — Mr. Larson and Mr. Ponder — relented, and the rest of the meeting, as Mr. Larson says, is “mute” [sic].

Mr. Marvel offered his response. He was articulate, and clearly a capable school manager and principal. He was well prepared, and controlled the meeting and his place in it. Whether you choose to believe it is an act or sincere, he certainly understands how to operate .

After Mr. Marvel’s speech, Mr. Ponder’s questions stand out. He stated that he wanted to start a conversation, but attempted to develop a narrative of recurrent moral turpitude. These questions seem framed to infer Mr. Marvel’s choices as crypto-pornographic and a glorification of domestic violence and sexual assault victims. Mr. Marvel had been a key part of founding of No More Mat-Su (an anti-domestic violence group), and outlined how there had never been a complaint about the short stories, and they were framed in a context of individual choice. Nevertheless, Mr. Ponder continued to argue his fear of the influence that Mr. Marvel could have. However, while several expressed that he may have used poor judgment in choice of books as a teacher, the majority present felt that he had demonstrated his better judgment as a principal.

The real end piece to discussion came from Saul Friedman, the attorney for the Mat-Su Schools District, on whether or not the Board had the right to vote on the appointment of principals. He started saying he was surprised that the Board was being asked to make a decision on the appointment, and it was the duty of the Superintendent of Schools, and the authority was not in the hands of the Board. On his advice, Mr. Larson moved to table the motion to rescind indefinitely. They never made it to Agenda Item 5, Rescind the May 22, 2019 Vote — Wasilla High School Principal Hire.

During the final Board comments at the end of the meeting, Mr. Michaelson noted that just two Board members were required to call that meeting. Both Mr. Larson and Mr. Ponder declined to offer any final comment. Meeting’s end brought adjournment for the Summer and that extended break from the weekly banality of the meetings probably didn’t help ease any tensions.

Mr. Marvel doesn’t appear in this story any further but, given what happened next, does he need to?

Come the Fall, there were to be School Board elections. Mr. Michaelson was running as the non-partisan incumbent against Jim Hart, running as a Republican in District 2. Mr. Ponder had been appointed by the Board to replace Yvonne Ruth in early February, was set to stand as a Republican in the District 5 race, facing Union endorsed Democrat Alma Hartley. In District 7, Jeff Taylor ran unopposed in the retiring Donna Dearman’s old seat, also as a Republican. In the election on November 5th, the Republicans all won, shifting the Board’s political make-up dramatically.

I noted in research for these articles an interesting piece by Devin Kelly in the Anchorage Daily News from March 20th, 2019. They carried a report on the influence of conservative advertising on the school board election races in Anchorage that year. An independent political group called Families of the Last Frontier had spent over $42,000 supporting — through advertising and robocalls — the two Republican candidates in the those races, David Nees, and Binkley Sims. Ms. Sims was reported to have raised more than $50,000, with nearly two weeks still to go before the election. Ms. Kelly contacted David Avella from national Republican organisation GOPAC, which was the biggest donors to Families of the Last Frontier. Avella said the focus of the organization was electing Republicans who can someday run for higher office.

While Anchorage is an outlier in a state that leans heavily Republican, it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that some of these School Board elections in Mat-Su Borough may have been funded in the same way. Certainly, a look at Mr. Ponder’s resume suggests someone with an upward political trajectory. Regardless of the reason, or the funding, when it came to a vote on the removal of five books and one resource on April 22nd this year, there was a distinct change in the voting, and the split had changed from 4–3 one direction to 5–2 the other.

Once more, I come back to my question — why did this happen? I don’t think that the banning/removal of books is a traditional Republican value (as some have suggested) for all the arguments of censorship, any more than it is a Democrat one for the arguments of political correctness. I have seen plenty of objections to the decision from all sides. Even the Sun newspaper — from the same media family as Fox News — is dismissive of the Board members who hadn’t read them, and noted their place in schools already (while, of course, glorying in the sensational elements of the story).

To me, it looks like a reaction. A principled stance was made in 2019, and two men of somewhat high standing were embarrassed, arguably even laughed at. They were defeated that day, and carried a bloodied nose all summer. But now, they run the Board, their party holds the majority at meetings, and so they have a chance to put their stamp on the curriculum, particularly now that they know that they have no say in selecting principals. The tide has turned in their favor, it would seem, and they can have things their way.

Except, maybe not. I had a look at the agenda for the next Board meeting, set for May 6th. Agenda item 7, part A, peeping out at me like a mirror universe echo of a year previously: Rescind April 22, 2020 vote — High School English Elective Curriculum and Reading List Part I….

The next Mat-Su Schools District Board meeting will be livestreamed on Wednesday 5/6 at 6pm AKDT / 7PT / 10ET.

This story is a follow-up on the report of what happened during the meeting where 5 books were “removed” from the English elective curriculum entitled “Five Books Lose To A Procedural Coup”