Democrat Morgan Kirkpatrick is running to represent District 15 on the Texas State Board of Education.
As of the last census, the total population of District 15 reached nearly 1,950,000 people and includes 87 counties, including Ector, Midland, Potter, Randall, Taylor, Tom Green, and Wichita.
The Dallas Express visited with Kirkpatrick to discuss her take on the topic of purportedly inappropriate books being removed from public school libraries.
Kirkpatrick taught reading and English at the middle school level for 14 years when she decided in May of 2022 to leave teaching.
“It was the hardest decision I ever made because I wanted to teach from the age of 10 in fourth grade,” said Kirkpatrick. “I am running because I do not want other teachers to have to make that decision.”
“I did not leave [teaching] because of my campus. I loved the people I worked with,” explained Kirkpatrick. “Because of the mandates from the central office and the state, they have continually added different policies, requirements, and paperwork without removing anything from teachers’ plates. So, we are expected to do more… It was not a manageable workload… it was all-consuming.”
Kirkpatrick said that “in order to protect my mental and physical health, I had to step out of the classroom.”
“I saw the writing on the wall in the legislative session of 2021 when there was a list of about 800-850 books passed around by a legislator [to be removed]. I had several of those books in my classroom library when I left teaching,” she said.
Kirkpatrick was referring to HB 900, known as the READER Act, which became effective in September of last year and pertained to the “regulation of library materials sold to or included in public school libraries,” per the bill. The bill requires booksellers to rate books for appropriateness based on their content.
Last month, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Texas Education Agency’s arguments that having booksellers rate books was a simple administrative task. While supporters of the bill claim that protecting children from inappropriate content is necessary, opponents argue that it would infringe upon freedom of speech and expression. As such, the future of the law is still undecided, as the next step would be to take the battle to the Supreme Court.
“The year after I left [teaching], teachers were not allowed to do any read-alouds unless it was a book approved by the district, so they were having to submit those,” said Kirkpatrick.
“It got to where the last couple of years of teaching, I shared a letter at Open House and sent home a letter at the beginning of school talking to parents and guardians about the books I had in my classroom library,” said Kirkpatrick. “I made it clear that what a student reads is between them and their adults and that I totally respect those boundaries, but one parent cannot determine what other students in the same classroom are able to read or not.”
“I’m not going to censor anybody,” said Kirkpatrick.
In speaking specifically about books concerning transgenderism and gender dysphoria in public schools, Kirkpatrick explained, “I remember a book by Alex Gino, originally called ‘George but now it is Melissa,’ because it is about a young child going through this situation. I read it as a teacher in class.”
In asking why she chose to read that book to her students, Kirkpatrick said that she “had no frame of reference for what a child might be going through when they are dealing with this… Having that frame of reference from a book helped me in the way I dealt with students in the classroom because I had students going through those issues.”
“In Lubbock, we have some of the highest [adolescent] suicide rates in the state. If these books help with someone’s mental health and save one kid from committing suicide, you can’t tell me that we should keep these books from kids,” she said.
Kirkpatrick looked to the research of academic Rudine Sims Bishop, explaining that “it is imperative that we have books that allow kids to see themselves, as if in a mirror; to see outside themselves and into other perspectives, like looking through a window, and a sliding glass door… to walk in those shoes and experience things they might not otherwise.”
In looking at other things Kirkpatrick would like to address on the Texas State Board of Education, she said, “I want to make sure that we have accurate and inclusive curriculum and materials that students can relate to and see themselves in.”
With regards to school choice, Kirkpatrick was clear: “Any situation in which funding is diverted from public schools, which are already underfunded, is unacceptable, especially if it is to private schools that are not held to the same standards, do not have to accept all children, and are not required to offer the same services.”
“I will be an advocate for our teachers, for our educators on all levels, and, number one, for our students,” said Kirkpatrick.
Kirkpatrick is running against Republican incumbent Aaron Kinsey in the November 5, 2024, general election.