Edmond Public Schools challenges legality of OSDE rules overseeing library books

Edmond Public Schools officials are asking for the Oklahoma State Supreme Court to rule on whether or not the Oklahoma State Department of Education has the authority to decide which books public schools can have in libraries, and to punish districts for violating their rules.

EDMOND, Okla. (KFOR) — Edmond Public Schools officials are asking for the Oklahoma State Supreme Court to rule on whether or not the Oklahoma State Department of Education has the authority to decide which books public schools can have in libraries, and to punish districts for violating their rules.

Edmond Public Schools (EPS) filed multiple legal challenges on Tuesday.

One of the challenges asks the Oklahoma State Supreme Court to rule whether the power to choose school library books lies with local school districts, or with the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE).

EPS also petitioned the court to file an injunction to stop the OSDE from taking any action against EPS until the court decides on the first challenge over OSDE’s jurisdiction.

EPS leaders say—legally—the OSDE has them between a rock and a hard place.

“EPS is in a Catch-22 situation,” Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunewald said at a special called news conference on Tuesday.

At the news conference, she announced the EPS board voted unanimously to file those legal challenges, after the district received a letter from the OSDE on January 19.

News 4 obtained a copy of that letter.

It ordered EPS to remove two books—the Kite Runner and the Glass Castle—from its high school libraries, claiming the OSDE’s Library Media Advisory Committee determined the books “qualified as sexualized content” under OSDE’s rule defining sexualized content.

The letter did not cite specific excerpts within the books it deemed as violating the rule, but claimed both books include descriptions of certain sexual encounters.

Neither book contains pictures or illustrations of any kind. Both are text-only.

The letter said EPS had 14 days to request a hearing with the Oklahoma State School board to contest the ruling.

According to the OSDE’s rules, the district could have its accreditation lowered if the state school board finds it violated OSDE’s rules.

On Tuesday, Superintendent Grunewald said the district had not received any complaints about the books until Monday’s letter. She noted the district allows citizens to request EPS to review a book, but no such requests had been submitted at the district level.  

“The State Department said it received five complaints dating back to April of last school year about these two books in our curriculum,” Superintendent Grunewald said. “It is important to note that EPS was only made aware of one of these complaints and we responded to the questions immediately.”

She says the district responded to OSDE’s letter, reminding them the district allows parents to opt their children out of reading certain assigned books.

“We responded and explained that parents have a choice for their books their students are assigned and read in the secondary level in their classroom,” Grunewald said. “We do believe in parent choice.”

She said EPS also told OSDE its own locally-elected board already set library book oversight policies that the district follows.

“Library books are highly protected,” she said. “They are protected materials that the district has a longstanding policy for review of the materials in our libraries.”

She argued there are legal precedents already set that make clear local school districts, not the state, have the power to choose and review its library books, and the OSDE’s rules it is trying to enforce against EPS are not legally valid.

“Federal court decisions have also said a superintendent nor the school board can unilaterally remove books from public school libraries,” Grunewald said.

A news release from EPS discussed the questionable legality of the OSDE’s rules further.

“The State Board of Education does not have the power to enact the rule it is attempting to enforce,” the statement said. “The Oklahoma Attorney General advised the State Board the rules would be unenforceable before they were enacted, and the legislature did not approve the rules as required under Oklahoma law. Although Governor Stitt administratively approved the rules, his approval does not give an invalid rule the force of law.”

Superintendent Grunewald said no matter what EPS does in response to the OSDE’s letter, the district will be put in a ‘Catch-22’ situation of either risking being sued, or having its accreditation lowered.

“If we remove the books, we would be going against our own policy and federal court decisions,” Grunewald said. “We would also be following rules that we believe are unlawful. If we do not remove the books, the State Department of Education has asked us to appear before the State Board of Education this Thursday to defend that decision.”

That’s why EPS filed those legal actions with the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday.  

“The simple sort of legal issue is whether or not the folks that sit back here at [EPS’s] Board of Education have the authority that the legislature gave them to decide what should be in a school library, or if the legislature has given that authority to the good folks down at 23rd to Lincoln,” EPS’s legal counsel Andrew Fugitt said.

Grunewald said she wanted to make very clear, the legal action filed by the district is not asking the Oklahoma Supreme Court to make a determination about the appropriateness of the two books in question, but instead definitively rule on who has the right to make that determination.

“This is not about the books,” she said. “It's about the fundamental rights of who decides what books are in the library and who has the right to say that book needs to be removed from the library.”

State Superintendent Ryn Walters sent out the following statement on Tuesday in response to EPS’s legal actions:

“This is an ongoing subversion of accountability. Edmond Public Schools not only allows kids to access porn in schools, they are doubling down to keep pornography on the bookshelves. Parents and kids should have the confidence of going to schools to learn. Instead of focusing on education, EPS has chosen to peddle porn and is leading the charge to undermine parents in Oklahoma.”

State Superintendent Ryan Walters

Grunewald said any claims that EPS, in any way, supplies or allows students to access pornography have zero factual basis.

“We do not have pornography in our classrooms, in our libraries, at our public schools,” Grunewald said.

The OSDE’s Library Media Advisory Committee, which ruled EPS had violated the OSDE’s rules, has a controversial history.

News 4 reported the public outcry when State Superintendent Ryan Walters appointed Chaya Raichik, who runs the controversial “Libs of TikTok” social media account, to serve on the committee.

Raichik is from out of state and has been accused of inciting recent bomb threats to Oklahoma schools.

It’s unclear if Raichik served on the committee at the time it made the ruling against Edmond Public Schools.