Conflict and Book Challenges: Is Your Team United?

by Valerie Edwards, August 2022

Cultivating and maintaining collegial relationships is a fundamental professional growth practice. Having a healthy, supportive professional community is a means for stabilizing mental and emotional drain as well as an avenue for creativity, collaboration, and revitalization. At no time is a strong, healthy professional community more vital than when our programs are facing a materials challenge.

Nurturing professional relationships takes intentional focus and care. When establishing library team bonds, much of our understanding of service standards is shared. In the literature we use for guidance, the inference is that every librarian and library staff member holds a common philosophical viewpoint and will react to inquiries and challenges in a similar fashion.

Broadly speaking, district library teams may agree about standards of service, while also operating under varied individual beliefs and reactions when faced with the reality of a full-blown challenge. Actively preparing each team member for this eventuality to a detailed level of understanding about each members' likely actions and reactions to a challenge can reduce the ensuing conflict and prevent it from negatively impacting vital, collegial relationships.

Employing the following strategies provides an opportunity to strengthen and unify the library team. This effort will prepare each member to respond more effectively, with a solid grounding in district policy and the vital nature of their role in responding to inquiries and challenges.

Anticipating and Addressing Conflict

As I write this article and review materials about the current censorship spike around the country, I am frustrated, angry, worried, and anxious. This means I am short tempered, snarky, judgmental, and impatient. I think these emotions and reactions are warranted, but in order to communicate effectively and work toward the most desired outcome, I need to be aware of my reaction and corresponding behavior. I need to be vigilant about my tone and words.

This is true of everyone facing tension-filled situations. Acting with hostility escalates conflict. Listening with great care before sharing your story and professional knowledge is a critical component to effectively balancing scholarship and emotional intelligence. It is tricky work.

Plan for the tension that may arise in team discussions by establishing guidelines. I appreciate this language found in the New Jersey Association of School Librarians "Safe Spaces Statement"

We agree to engage in open, honest, and respectful communication. Acknowledging our individual experiences and understanding we will value every voice and perspective expressed in our meetings. We will refrain from judging and instead identify workable strategies for delivering our best work. We will respect each other's humanity. We will listen and learn together. Our conversations will remain confidential unless otherwise agreed upon. We will remain aware that our duty is to our students and community, not to our personal beliefs (https://www.njasl.org/PositionStatements).

Gather Your Community

Establish a core of supporters with your closest colleagues, your district library team. If you are the sole library professional in your district, look within and beyond your school walls. This is a natural opportunity to seek out collaborators at your local public library. Other sources of support within your building/district include library staff, content area educators, guidance counselors (a fantastic partner for sharing the critical need for sensitive content), professional associations, parent groups, and local bookstores. Leave no stone unturned if you are short on partners, including reaching out to the author of this article and the authors of similar content in professional journals and online.

Move beyond the Policy

It is common throughout the library world to hear about the necessity of having a selection and reconsideration policy and process in place. This is fundamental to preparing to handle the inevitable inquiries or challenges that will be raised. However, there is another equally vital aspect to preparing to effectively address challenges to content in our libraries and classrooms. Often overlooked, likely due to professional assumptions, it is the need to plan as a team. This work helps ensure that everyone understands how and when they will take a role in the reconsideration process.

Make Selection and Reconsideration a Permanent Discussion Topic

Work as a team to reach a common understanding of district policies. Consider, discuss, and initiate updates to existing policies based on new information from the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF). Monitor and learn from challenges in other districts across the country. There is an abundance of topics and issues to explore, providing opportunities to strengthen policies already in place. Identifying possible updates affords an opportunity to include administrators and board members in the conversation.

Here is an example from Steve Tetreault on ways that ongoing conversation illuminates the value of reflection and prospective taking. Dr. Tetreault shares,

"One simple but potentially important idea that really struck a chord was changing our own language, particularly changing 'age appropriate' to 'age relevant.' 'Appropriate' is going to mean different things to different people and carries with it a connotation of being something that folks would feel comfortable discussing around the dinner table. But, our students have a lot of issues that are very relevant to their lives that are not polite and that lots of folks might even find distasteful. Making sure we provide students with age-relevant reading materials is important for their development and is part of what public education is about.

It's also important to remember that so much of how challenges are being presented is emotional, not logical. Emotions sway people's thoughts much more readily than logical and facts; and yet, school librarians often find themselves coming to the conversation reactively, rather than proactively, and trying to challenge emotional arguments with factual information. It would behoove school librarians to prepare their own emotional arguments" (Steve Tetreault, email message to author, May 22, 2022).

Pulling together portrayals of the relevance of difficult content is an area where partnering with counselors can both illuminate and reinforce the diverse demands on library collections.

Make these conversations an essential part of onboarding new team members. Include discussions of possible scenarios and develop and share "what if" strategies. Invite conversations comparing existing district documents to the recommendations from OIF's Selection & Reconsideration Policy Toolkit: https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit.

Measure Risk and Establish Roles

Not all team members will be comfortable directly challenging board members or district administrators, particularly if those leaders have circumvented the formal policy. Team members will vary in the type of language and actions they are comfortable using to communicate with parents and community stakeholders. Depending on what can be very complex circumstances, there may be team members who are unwilling to take a role in defending challenges materials at all.

These variations in comfort when responding to extremely trying circumstances are neutralized when understood in advance. Allowing each member of the team to be heard and find their own place within the response not only builds trust but also prevents unnecessary stress during a time of upheaval.

Despite this preparation, when the challenge comes it will likely be a variant of the scenarios discussed during prep. Anticipate and allow for attitudes and circumstances to have altered among team members. Rely on the strong connections nurtured during planning to accommodate changes in approach. These adaptations will allow for the team to best defend against the challenge and come out the other side intact. The importance of looking beyond the challenge to the future of the team in the aftermath cannot be overstated.

Partial List of Supporting Team Roles:

• Literature survey of articles depicting others' experiences as well as issues to consider, explore, and discuss as a team
• Pull quotes and talking points based on statistical evidence (where possible) from materials found in professional publications and via professional organizations
• Contact likely allies, including organizations and individuals, colleagues, and parents
• Manage technical or production components of defense; posting information to website, social media
• Compose communications to unify voices
• Prepare and educate school board members, district leaders, and colleagues
• Collect testimonials from students, parents, guidance counselors, and community activists
• Lead the reconsideration committee
• Participate in interviews with news media
• Schedule conversations with administrators, board members, and parties initiating the challenge

The amount of risk, public exposure, time, and confidence demanded of these potential roles varies widely but all of them are valuable and result in a collaborative, collegial team-focused response.

Prepare Yourself to Engage in Team Conversations

• Maintain an awareness of your own mindset. Note and reflect on your reactions, acknowledge and moderate your emotions, determine your confidence and capacity to respond.
• Attend to and seek to understand and respect the responses of your colleagues. What is guiding their reactions? Recognize the validity of their financial insecurities, conflict avoidance, feeling of being overwhelmed, difficulty processing, differing ideas on an effective, appropriate response, and their fear of harming relationships with the school board and in the community.
• Invite in rather than call out. The more individuals that comprise your team, the stronger your effort and impact. However, as your team grows so will the likelihood of diverging viewpoints. To unify the team around a common purpose, it is important to find opportunities to identify avenues for inclusion rather than obstacles that divide.

Prepare a team action plan with task flowcharts and timelines. Identify the team members assuming responsibility AND plan for those members to have backup. Anticipate circumstances which will alter their ability or willingness to fulfill the commitments. Review this plan annually and when new team members are added.

As respected professor Gloria Ladson-Billings of the University of Wisconsin-Madison stated recently, "There is a difference between being bold and courageous and being reckless" (2022). Be aware that the line between courageous and reckless will fall in a different location for everyone on your team.

Conducting Team Conversations

With resources from the OIF, your team can conduct in-depth conversations and planning using materials that provide a neutral starting point. As these are not your district documents, they are not built on you or your team's direct input, minimizing ownership, and conversations can have a professional, rather than a personal, investment.

Begin, perhaps, with a statement like this one:

"Any person has the right to express concerns about library resources and expect to have the objection taken seriously" (https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/principles).

This allows for putting negative reactions to questions being raised into perspective. Often an inquiry feels like an attack on our professionalism. It requires both intellectual and emotional effort to pause and consider the right of those we serve to ask for clarification and explanation.

Ideally, we can shift our mindset to encompass appreciation and even gratitude that members of our community have the interest and investment to make an inquiry. This may sound incredibly naïve given our current climate. However, I have experienced this approach having a positive outcome. Seeking first to understand and respectfully responding to concerned inquiries may be all that is necessary. Conversely, starting out from a defensive position is unlikely to result in trust, an open conversation, or a positive result. Even inquiries that are designed to be inflammatory are better addressed with calm professionalism.

Practice responding with curiosity, varying the format and tone of the inquiry. Roleplay as a parent concerned about their student's reading experience making an in-person inquiry during parent conferences. Test out language for responding to a phone inquiry. What will be said when the caller is not specific but has a general concern about materials on display? What will be said when the caller is angry about a specific title? What will be said if the caller is a board member?

Develop similar templated communication for email inquiries, inquiries filtered through administrators, etc. Unfortunately, there is no end of scenarios to draw from based on situations occurring around the country. There are also many solid templates and policies available from OIF to support you in strengthening a planned response.

Embed Team Behaviors

• Maintain professional conduct; email and other communications are subject to open records requests.
• Expand information gathered in challenge request forms. What information is it helpful to know about the complaint and the complainant?
• Build a defense team from your library team, building administrators, reconsideration committee members, teachers, PTA/PTO, board members, district administrators, local public library staff, local bookstore staff, etc.
• Avoid making qualifying statements; consider the impact of your message carefully.
• Be as consistent as possible in responses and actions throughout the district library team.
• Remember, conversation, planning, and policy pre-work cannot cover every contingency. Build and value a culture of conversation and support. Make in-the-moment realizations easier to navigate, minimizing internal team discord.

Simulate the Crisis

There is a reason schools have regular fire drills. Walking the library team through a challenge cycle reinforces planning conversations and reveals confusion while it can still be addressed. There will still be unexpected obstacles when faced with reality. To the extent possible, plan for managing the unanticipated, unexpected obstacles and frustrations that will surely arise.

You Are a Role Model

In the midst of a challenge, it can be difficult to be "on." It is especially critical during these times to remember our students are watching and learning. What will they see that helps them learn how to face adversity? Employ compassion, realizing the battle you are fighting may be with one (or more) of your students' parents. It is so easy to lose focus on how our actions can inadvertently harm others. The more teams plan, prepare, rehearse, and share, the easier it is to maintain composure and act with intent.

This understanding was solidified for me in a conversation about the preparation and execution of selection and reconsideration policies with Teresa Voss, High School Librarian and District Library Team Coordinator for the Verona Area School District in Wisconsin. Teresa's library team presents regularly to their district academic services and leadership teams. This is the bottom line in their message: "The materials selection policy is for our students. The policy is not to protect the professional employing it. It is to ensure access to the materials and resources that a diverse student body requires" (Teresa Voss, personal interview, May 24, 2022).

Start Today!

Add intellectual freedom to your team agenda and leave it there. Share your stories and conversations about books with teachers, administrators, parents, and students. Share your concerns when ordering an edgy title; your comments and thoughts that have you reflecting on your professional values and motivations. Share, share, and share openly while listening attentively, planning, and joining together. Unite in the fight to maintain your students' right to information, the freedom to read, and to being seen.

Work Cited

Ladson-Billings, Gloria. "Going for Broke in Education." Online symposium. PLACE: Professional Learning and Community Education. UW-Madison, Wisconsin, March 9, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WchdstWF_Qo&t=7s.