The following letter has been received for publication in The Newtown Bee.

To Board of Education Chair Deborra Zukowski and members of the Board of Education:

This letter is not about me. It’s about experts. Forty years of teaching, a Master’s +60 graduate hours, a Rotary fellowship, raising my children as a widower, living in Newtown for almost 40 years; all these things don’t make me an expert on whether a book should or shouldn’t be banned.

This requires very exacting training and experience.

That’s why, when there were challenges to the books Flamer and Blankets, the Board of Education assembled a team who did have the expertise, and who engaged in a process of working together to facilitate a clear and appropriate decision. This Special Committee came to a unanimous decision that these books were wholly appropriate to keep in the Newtown High School Library.

I read both books, and couldn’t find any problem with them. They’re clearly not pornographic, they have educational value, and they could make a significant difference for some struggling adolescents.

If the Board of Education ignores the findings of their own experts and their own process, it would be disconcerting; it would show extreme disrespect for their own established process, and all the years of training and experience of their own experts.

Please don’t set yourselves up as having more expertise than they do. Please don’t vote to overturn the decision of your own Special Committee. Please keep those books in the Newtown High School Library.

Edward Randall

Newtown