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Resident defends hiring students to promote his work; parent says book made children uncomfortable
Summary
Public comment at the Port Orford-Langlois SD 2CJ board meeting featured resident John Huddle describing paying students to read his book and contact entertainers, and parent Britney Huggin saying the book contains sexual and violent material that made children uncomfortable. The board took no action but reminded speakers of public-comment rules.
Resident John Huddle used the district’s public-comment period to describe his efforts to market his books and to recruit local students as paid readers for an outreach project.
“My name is John Huddle,” he told the board. Huddle said he had paid ‘‘thousands’’ to author services and lawyers, and that he had reached out to students—sometimes through parents and sometimes directly—asking them to read his work and, if they liked it, to contact entertainers on social media. “I’d pay the kids 100 bucks to read the book and if they liked it they’d reach out to Olivia Rodrigo,” Huddle said, stressing the effort was a personal project and not a school or Rotary function.
The comment prompted an immediate response from another attendee. “The book…made my child very uncomfortable and several other children uncomfortable,” said Britney Huggin, who asked the board to note that, in her view, the books contained “domestic violence and rape, which is definitely not appropriate for teenage girls.” Huggin signed the public-comment roster when asked by the chair.
Board leadership read public-comment policy BDBH and BDDH at the start of the meeting, reminding speakers that comments must be objective and limited to three minutes, and that the board does not hear personal complaints about district personnel during public comment. The chair instructed visitors to use the Zoom chat or the in-person sign-up sheet to register to speak; no formal disciplinary or investigative actions were taken during the meeting.
The exchange remained in the public-comment record; neither the board nor staff indicated they would take immediate disciplinary or curricular action based on the remarks. The chair reminded speakers not to mention student names aloud and to follow the district’s process for complaints about personnel or materials.
The board did not vote or direct staff to take a specific follow-up during the meeting; the public record is limited to the statements made during the public-comment period.
