The Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office and fire department will maintain a presence at the next School Board meeting as a response to a book burning event scheduled by a local Facebook group, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Troy Skebo said Wednesday.
The anonymously run page Spotsy 411 posted the event Nov. 22, urging Spotsylvania parents to have their children check out books from the school library that they want to see removed, and bring them to the Dec. 13 School Board meeting, where “we will burn every last one of them.”
The event disappeared from the page Nov. 25 and the page was no longer published on Facebook as of Nov. 28.
Skebo said the Sheriff’s Office met with the county Fire Marshal’s Office this week to discuss the event and have notified the school division that a book burning would be in violation of state and local fire codes.
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Spotsy 411 also posted the names and workplaces of all school division employees who spoke at the Nov. 15 School Board meeting in opposition to the board’s decision to remove “sexually explicit” books from library shelves without following established policy for challenging library materials.
The board rescinded the vote to pull the books at its Nov. 15 meeting.
The two board members who at an earlier November meeting said books they objected to should be burned—Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg—voted against rescinding the removal.
Adele Uphaus
I have covered education, local government and social services for the Free Lance-Star since 2016.
