Welcome to Salmon River Joint School District Library Page!
Here you will find information and updates regarding both the elementary and high school libraries. You can access the library catalog for both schools by clicking on the button below! Happy Searching!
Ashley Mayes, District Librarian:
Email: mayesa@jsd243.org
Phone: (208) 630-6025 Ext; 5117
Anissia Lunceford, RES Library Assistant:
Email: lunceforda@jsd243.org
Phone: (208) 630-6055
New Library Book Selection Review
The review will be available for 30 days. Please contact Librarian Ashley Mayes, RES Principal Trish Simonson or SRHS Principal Kyle Ewing.
Please click the form link below to view the newest selected items for purchase. Please use the feedback form.
23-24 RES & SRHS Book Selection for Possible Purchase Posted 5/13/24
Click on the link below to
Response Form: 23-24 RES & SRHS Book Selection for Possible Purchase
Donated Books for Review
Library Book Reconsideration
The school library is the principal location for students to inquire, to study and evaluate, and to gain new maturity and understanding. This District is granted discretion to regulate education and has the authority to determine the initial selection of the library collection. However, the Board also recognizes students’ First Amendment constitutional rights. Parents/guardians have the right to guide the reading, viewing, and listening of their own children but must likewise give the same right to other parents/guardians. The Board has a constitutional obligation to not remove materials simply because it disagrees with subject matter. The First Amendment to the US Constitution encompasses not only freedom to share one’s views but also freedom to receive information.
The Board reaffirms the principles of intellectual freedom inherent in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and expressed in the School Library Bill of Rights, endorsed by the American Association of School Librarians in 1969.
The District has libraries in each school with the primary objective of implementing and supporting the educational program in the schools. It is the objective of these libraries to provide a wide range of materials on all age-appropriate levels of difficulty, with a diversity of appeal, and the presentation of different points of view.
The Board of Trustees strives to enhance communications, understanding, trust, and mutual support between the district and the people it serves. We acknowledge that our students come from diverse backgrounds, and it is our goal to provide an environment that supports individual family values and beliefs. Parents/guardians have the right to determine the subject matter, including library materials, which they see as compatible with their values and beliefs. However, no individual has the right to restrict materials for students other than his/her own children.
Any individual may challenge the selection of materials for the library/media center. The procedure outlined in Policy 2510P shall be utilized to determine if the challenged material is properly located in the library.
Click on (this link) for the committee application
Relevant Board Policy on the JSD #243 District Libraries:
Selection of Library Materials 2510
Idaho Statute and Supreme Court Rulings
Island Trees School District v. Pico
“In the Supreme Court case Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), the Court held that the First Amendment limits the power of junior high and high school officials to remove books from school libraries because of their content.”
https://billofrightsinstitute.org
“Although school boards have a vested interest in promoting respect for social, moral, and political community values, their discretionary power is secondary to the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment. The Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, held that as centers for voluntary inquiry and the dissemination of information and ideas, school libraries enjoy a special affinity with the rights of free speech and press. Therefore, the Board could not restrict the availability of books in its libraries simply because its members disagreed with their idea content.” Oyez.org
“Supreme Court Justice William Brennan Jr. issued an opinion 40 years ago asserting that under the First Amendment, ‘Local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” Freedomforum.org
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School
District
• 1969 Case: “students nor teachers do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
• The Court took the position that school officials could not prohibit only on the suspicion that the speech might disrupt the learning environment. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/21
Case v. Unified School District
1995 case dealing with LGBT issues, where a school board in Kansas removed Annie on My Mind from the district’s junior
and high school libraries. In its decision, the district court referred to Pico when choosing to support the plaintiffs and having the book returned to the shelves. The school board removed the book because they did not approve of its content, and not because it was vulgar or educationally unsuitable. The school board did NOT follow its own reconsideration policy in its decision to remove the book.
Protections
To help parents protect their children from unwanted subject matter:
All parents and guardians signed a permission form for the 22-23 school year.
In addition:
Parents can give the school librarian and their child’s teacher a list of books they do not want their child to check out.
The library has been organized to include a section available only to 9-12th grade.
If a parent or community member does not deem a book acceptable for students, they may formally challenge the book
A note on obscenity:
• Obscenity – another vague area of court interpretations and state statutes – is not necessarily protected.
• The “Miller” test: (1) that the average person, applying “contemporary community standards” would find the work, as a
whole, appeals to the “prurient interest,” (2) that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (3) that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
ISBA Annual Convention 2022
2022 Challenged Books
The Review Committee consists of the building principal, the school library, a teacher from each secondary and elementary school, a parent from each secondary and elementary school, and a community member. In the event that there are no volunteers/applicants for a particular member slot, an additional member maybe selected from the applicant pool.
The Review Committee shall be appointed annually at the beginning of each school year. The teacher, parent, and community member representatives may not serve on the review committee for consecutive years.
Norms and Procedures Presentation
Date Challenged: 8/14/22
Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Library Housed: Salmon River Jr/Sr High
Decision: Retain with restrictions to 9th-12th
Review Committee Decision:
Reconsideration Committee Summary
Date Challenged: 7/22/22
Title: We are Okay
Author: Nina Lacour
Library Housed: Salmon River Jr/Sr High
Decision: Retain with restrictions to 9th-12th
Review Committee Decision:
Reconsideration Committee Summary
Date Challenged: 7/22/22
Title: Dear Martin
Author: Nic Stone
Library Housed: Salmon River Jr/Sr High
Decision: Retain
Review Committee Decision:
Reconsideration Committee Summary
Date Challenged: 7/22/22
Title: This One Summer
Author: Mariko Tamaki
Library Housed: Salmon River Jr/Sr High
Decision: Retain with restrictions to 10th-12th grade
Review Committee Decision: