Cobb County removes 4 more books from school libraries

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - The Cobb County School District has removed four more books from its media centers. Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced the action at Thursday night's school board meeting.

In his announcement, Ragsdale said the action protects students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers.

"Tonight I'm announcing that four additional books are being removed after have gone through our very thorough district process: ‘It Ends with Us,’ ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower,’ ‘Lucky,’ and ‘Thirteen Reasons Why,'" the superintendent said at the meeting.

The district removed two other books, "Me Earl and the Dying Girl," and "Flamer" back in August 2023. Superintendent Ragsdale said the books are "age-inappropriate."

"I have made a distinct statement saying that protecting children from age-inappropriate and graphic explicit sexual material is a battle between good and evil," he said.

Books that have been removed from schools in Georgia.

Not everyone agrees with the action. During the public comment section of the board meeting before this discussion, one parent addressed the actions of removing books from media centers.

"It's tough being a media specialist in CCSD right now. The board majority, superintendent, and even a candidate for school board are attacking media specialists and claiming they are trying to give students pornographic material. They are not," parent Sharon Hudson said.

"Media specialists are the ones with the training to do their jobs, not you. Quit telling them how to do their jobs and banning books in their libraries," Hudson continued.

In a statement, Ragsdale called many of the people protesting against the district's actions "activists" and said he wanted to reassure parents that children would not have unrestricted access to content he deemed lewd, vulgar, or sexually explicit materials at school.

"So many people are erroneously presenting this as book banning. Again, that is erroneous and could not be further from the truth. We are not banning books no more than we are banning rated R or NC17 movies," he said.

The entire district has been undergoing a process of looking at all materials in the media center to make sure there are not any inappropriate materials.