HOUSTON -- After three months of discussions with Channelview ISD, and three hearings with school officials, a parent has succeeded in her quest to get a book about poo removed from an elementary school library.
The kindergarten son of Randy and Tammy Harris was suspended for a day last year because he called another student a poo poo head. The parents didn t fight the suspension at the time because they didn t want him talking like that either.
But during his first-grade year in 2001 at Harvey Brown Elementary the boy checked out a book form the school library called The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby. It is a comic book tale, written with the penmanship and misspellings of a fictitious elementary school student, about a baby with super powers battling a giant nuclear-mutated piece of poo.
I think it s gross. It's disgusting, Tammy Harris said after taking the book from her son. Who wants to talk about feces?
She said she wanted to talk about it because the book had much the same language her son had been accused of using. She asked for meetings with the principal, librarian, and eventually the superintendent to ask how her son could be suspended for saying the same words he was allowed to read in a school-sanctioned library book.
And they're kicking my son out for it? Are they kidding me? she said.
The author also tells kids to read banned books, to boycott standardized tests, and jokingly promises to send more offensive material, if you write to complain about the book s offensive material.
The Harris family s complaints were heard, but denied, at the first two levels of hearings offered by the school district. They appealed a third time and their request to have the book removed from the Brown Elementary library was approved this week.
In accordance with district policy, the complainant and administration followed established guidelines and procedures identified within the complaint/grievance process regarding the concern about a library book in one of our schools, the district told KHOU 11 News in a written statement. As a result of the Level III hearing conducted on July 11, 2011 with the Channelview ISD Board of Trustees, the book in question has been removed from the campus library.
The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby is a popular series provided to school districts by Scholastic, Inc. and is from the creators of another popular series called Captain Underpants.
