School board votes 4-1 to remove The Art of Racing in the Rain from division collections

The Rockingham County School Board voted 4-1 to remove The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein from the division’s approved materials after a contentious discussion in which board members cited specific page excerpts they described as containing explicit content. The motion to remove was made by a board member and carried on a roll-call vote following a presentation by the superintendent’s office and the content review committee.

Superintendent Dr. Shiflett told the board his recommendation was to retain the book, saying the recommendation reflected the Content Review Committee’s findings. "My recommendation is based on the work of the Content Review Committee," he said while relaying the committee’s conclusion that the book did not meet the division’s definition of prohibited explicit content.

A board member who moved for removal said the relevant pages contained material that, under the division’s standard, required exclusion. The member acknowledged personal difficulty with the decision but said the policy required removal when a work met the explicit-content definition. "I would let my child read this book," the member said, "but our policy is not based on my opinion... if it has explicit content, it has to go."

During public comment earlier in the meeting, retired school librarian Sandra Parks criticized the board’s recent approach to reconsideration and removal. Parks said confining decisions to narrowly defined excerpts had sidelined the review committee’s broader evaluative work and risked censorship: "The board assumes extensive power to decide what all children can read based on passages taken out of context," she said.

Board discussion referenced the votes by the content review committee and the superintendent’s recommendation; one member clarified that the motion to remove opposed the committee’s recommendation. The clerk read the motion and the board took a roll-call vote that resulted in a 4-1 outcome in favor of removal. The board did not take additional action on the other books referenced during the committee’s review during this meeting.

The decision leaves the division’s content-review process and its definition of prohibited content at the center of continued public debate. The board did not announce an immediate timeline for public release of excerpts or an administrative plan for communicating removals to schools and families.

The board moved on to other agenda items after the vote; no further debate or a formal appeal schedule was announced at the meeting.