Florida school district rejects donated dictionaries due to book closure

• The Sarasota County School District turned down a dictionary donation while it was on the books.
• The book freeze follows the passage of HB 1467, which requires books to be approved by a government-certified specialist.
• A Rotary Club said it has donated 300 dictionaries a year to the district for the past 15 years.

A Florida school district turned down a dictionary donation because of the book freeze due to the state’s new law on educational materials.

Supporters of the Venice Suncoast Rotary Club say they have donated 300 dictionaries to the school district each year for the past 15 years, totaling up to 4,000 dictionaries. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports that this is the first time they have been denied.

“I suspect someone, anyone, could approve a dictionary in less than a minute,” Rotary Club member Gar Reese told the Tribune. “Why do we go to all this trouble?”

The Sarasota County School District implemented a book stand requiring that all educational reading materials be approved by a certified educational media professional after Florida’s HB 1467 took effect on July 1. According to the Tribune, the Sarasota School District is still trying to hire three media specialists.

The new law requires districts to make textbooks available to the public and the Florida Department of Education to publish a list of books removed by school boards. When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill on March 25, he said it would ensure “curriculum transparency.”

“In Florida, parents have every right to be involved in their child’s education. We will not allow politicians to take away parents’ right to know what they are learning in our schools,” DeSantis said in a press release at the time.

The bill is among DeSantis and the political right’s goal of censoring history in schools. On Thursday, a federal judge blocked part of Florida’s “Stop WAKE Act,” which restricts how schools discuss race.

The book is expected to remain in place in Sarasota County until January when the district seeks guidance from the DOE, according to the Tribune.

“It’s very sad,” Rees told the Tribune. “Nobody wants to start an argument over a dictionary.”