Shared Responsibility for the Use of Controversial Instructional Materials: 

Littleton Public Schools places a high value on providing students with a rigorous educational experience. School Board policy states that it is appropriate for schools to offer opportunities for students to address controversial topics in an intellectual manner. (LPS Board Policy INB). Therefore, as students mature, so does the content that they study in school. 

Core and supplemental materials designated for instructional use must be approved by the elected members of the Board of Education. A district Literature Approval Committee, comprised of teachers, administrators and community members, receives literature recommendations from teachers. The committee reviews literature for its alignment to district curriculum, as well as for the maturity level of the students for whom the content is intended. The approval committee then decides which books to forward to the Board of Education for their discussion and action. 

The LPS district also places a high value on maintaining strong partnerships with parents in monitoring challenging instructional materials. School Board policy states that parents will be informed of material that may reasonably be considered controversial. Information to parents should be sufficient to raise their attention to possible controversial material. Further, the Littleton Public Schools OPT OUT Procedure supports the parent option to request that an alternative material be selected. An effective partnership is established when teachers communicate information about challenging instructional materials and parents actively monitor the books that their children are reading. LPS teachers will provide information about instructional materials to all parents. Websites such as bookreporter.com and sparknotes.com offer brief summaries of literature for parents to review. Parents are expected to take an active role by monitoring the literature read by their student for class and communicating questions or concerns to the classroom teacher. 

For more information regarding the selection and use of instructional materials, please refer to the district website for the LPS OPT OUT Procedure, along with Board policies and regulations IJK, IMA and INB. Through shared responsibility, the students of Littleton benefit from learning in a setting that values both parent choice and the use of a variety of challenging instructional materials.