CBE looks forward to ‘common goals’ under new book rules

We're learning which Alberta schools were flagged for having library books deemed graphic and sexually inappropriate by the province.

Alberta’s education minister has shared a list of schools that had four graphic novels flagged to the ministry that were circulating at school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton, amid pushback to a ministerial order directing school divisions to ban books containing sexually explicit content.

“Over the past few months, I have seen several comments from Albertans asking for proof that these books existed in Alberta schools. I initially did not share this list, as I did not feel drawing attention to individual schools was necessary or helpful. However, I believe Albertans deserve transparency,” Demetrios Nicolaides posted on X late Tuesday.

The list includes schools under the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) and Edmonton Public Schools that carried Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Flamer by Mike Curato and Blankets by Craig Thompson.

The schools include high schools, junior high schools, and K-9s in Calgary.

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CBE chief superintendent Joanne Pitman said there was no single elementary school that carried these particular books.

“They were all schools that had middle school grades within them. So, I think that’s important to recognize that said it’s really easy to engage in all kinds of different debate. Our top priority is ensuring that we have quality relationships with our students, that we have quality texts available to them,” she said.

In July, the government issued an order to remove books with images, illustrations, audio and written passages of sexually explicit content for students in all grades by the end of September.

However, on Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith said her government was making changes to the ministerial order to only target books containing sexual images.

The pause came after Edmonton’s public school division put together a list of more than 200 books to remove to comply with the initial order which included Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Nicolaides said he is “revising the order immediately to ensure that classic literary works remain in school libraries, while books with graphic pornographic images, such as those depicted below, do not end up in the hands of children.”

The premier said new rules are on the way.

“I’m going to be more explicit than usual so there is no misunderstanding this policy:

1. Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries.

2. Leave the classics on the shelves.

3. We all know the difference between the items in 1 and 2.

Let’s not play any more games in implementing this policy for our kids.”

Pitman said she looks forward to seeing the changes.

“What I understand is our common goals are developmentally appropriate books available to students to ensure that our students are critical thinkers and reflect diverse perspectives. The manner in which that will be laid out by the government is something that we look forward to clarity on.”

There’s no timeline when the new ministerial order will be put out.

“We are currently working on a new version of the ministerial order and will not be commenting about specific changes at this time,” said the minister in a statement Wednesday.

(With files from the Canadian Press and Mark Villani)