A Petition for Transparency in Media Content Provided by the School District of Columbia County, Georgia

Recent Progress on This Effort

All,

Thank you to everyone who showed support by signing this petition! It was a powerful tool that I have referenced often in my emails and meetings with district employees. When it was implied that I was the only parent in disagreement with the sexual content in schools, I was able to state that well over 100 others in the community felt the same way and reference this petition. Thank you all so much for making this happen!

I have been blessed to be linked with other parents also working to help our schools focus on education by removing distractions such as CRT and sexual content that violates the spirit of Georgia's laws. We will be presenting our school board with a resolution asking that they close some loopholes that exist in the Georgia laws regarding sexually sensitive materials in school. We will be presenting it at the board meeting on November 9th and requesting for them to formally adopt it on December 7th.

A little bit about the laws we are trying to close: Georgia’s obscenity laws regarding minors are outlined in OCGA 16-12-100 and its subparagraphs. The law was written with the intent of protecting children from the psychological damage that is caused by exposure to sexual obscenities. However, the law includes an exception clause for school libraries because it was understood that media specialists were dealing with high volumes of reading material for children, and no one wanted school media specialists to be charged with crimes if a book was accidentally overlooked. This law was written with the assumption that schools would act in good faith, which is no longer the case. This library exception clause is now being used as a loophole to provide pornographic material to our children, which fully violates the spirit of the law.

OCGA § 20-2-143 and Georgia Board of Education Rule 160-4-2-12 state the requirements for schools to inform parents about sexual education courses and obtain signatures of approval before their child is exposed to this content, acknowledging that parents desired full control over the teaching of these sensitive topics. Once again, this law was written in a time of good faith, when it was unthinkable that schools would discuss sexual topics in any other context. This is clearly no longer the case, as sexual materials, discussions, and references have permeated through our school district. We are asking our board members to uphold the spirit of these laws by voluntarily ensuring that obscene materials are no longer allowed in our school libraries and that sexually sensitive topics will only be discussed with parental permission.

If you would like to show the school board that you support this resolution, please consider signing the petition here: https://www.petitions.net/ccboeresolution

Because one has to wonder… why would any adult teaching our children want to violate the spirit of these laws made to keep our children safe from sexual predators?

Update on Petition

Hello all,

Thank you so much for your signatures as we work to bring attention to this issue! I received a letter response from the superintendent that unfortunately was very vague and noncommital. It merely stated that the school district provides material for a "global education" and that the matter would be discussed by the media committee at some point when they meet again. 

I will be speaking at the next board meeting on July 13th to express my dissatisfaction with this response and once again ask that they implement the suggested measures to fix the lack of transparency and consistency with library materials. I will also contact the Augusta Chronicle and WRDW to see if they are interested in covering it again for more visibility.

Thank you all again for your support, and I will keep everyone posted periodically with major updates. In the meantime, please keep passing this around to anyone you know personally who may be interested in signing. Have a blessed night!

Sincerely,

Katie Allen

Share this petition

Help this petition to reach more signatures.

How to promote a petition?

• Share the petition on your Facebook wall and in groups related to the topic of your petition.
• Contact your friends
  1. Write a message where you explain why you have signed this petition, since people are more likely to sign it if they understand how important the topic is.
  2. Copy and paste the web address of the petition into your message.
  3. Send the message using email, SMS, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype, Instagram and LinkedIn.