The Mentor Public schools district board of education meeting took a turn for the worse as concerned parents flocked to the podium during the public comment portion to voice their concerns over the district’s alleged sexualization of students and concerns over the safety of female students within the district.

During the public comments section, several mothers chastised the board over their lack of adequate control, or perhaps malicious imposition, with regard to course curriculum. According to some parents, the district was planning to vote on whether to remove one book from the grade 10 honors reading list, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, due to its graphic depiction of sex with minors. Despite the vote, the district is still choosing to keep the book available to students in the library, if not in the curriculum itself.

“How is it not acceptable in one place but is in the other,” Parent Sage McMillan said. “10 grade honors reading list as well as the 11 grade English class, which are both guided settings because [the book] is not appropriate for their age, yet it is still in the library available for 9 graders in non-guided settings.”

McMillan also voiced her concern over the board’s specific decisions and opinions on the Ohio School Board platform conference.

“I noticed you’ll be voting on the capital conference attendance,” McMillan said. “Merry Jenny and Maggie voted down the parental rights platform because they didn’t feel parents had a right to know all aspects of the children’s education. This is reflected in the meeting minutes special board meeting if you want to refer back to that. Since over $10,000 of our tax dollars are used to support OSBA, to see you push against parental rights with our own money, this isn’t the first time you have not supported parents rights. Let me remind you of all the things on the list of things you should hide from parents; it’s nothing, zero, zilch, nadda, that’s your list.”

Others flocked to the podium to voice concerns with what they felt was deliberate sexualization of students within the district. One concerned parent read a passage from the book Empire of Storms, which contained an explicitly graphic sexual scene which goes into intricate detail of the participant’s individual orgasms. According to that parent, the segment seemed specifically designed to excite and entice a prospective reader, which would fall under the category of pornography by state standards. 

“These books are not appropriate,” the parent said. “You are giving pornagraphic material to children and it will not be tolerated even with parental notification of sexual content. Your job is to protect and teach our children, not to sexualize them.”

A third district mother specifically called out the district for their poor handling of a recent physical altercation that occurred at Mentor highschool between a young girl and a boy who allegedly identifies as a girl. Outside of voicing concern over the safety of students within the district’s halls, the parent had a few choice words for the three specific members of the board.

“It seems like [board members] Mary and Maggie and Ginnie ignore parents concerns and even advocate for books containing child molestation and pedophilia to be available to minors and to me that sounds like grooming,” the parent said. “So my question is, is it any wonder why parents are suspicious of teachers and educators these days? These folks are supposed to be supporting parents and families and helping to keep our community safe and healthy but instead there are so many that we are seeing that are advocating to keep secrets from their parents, that they want to have pornography at the kids fingertips and a lot of people want to play along with kids who are confused with gender dysphoria. I just also want to say the fight that happened yesterday at mentor high school, that’s appalling and I think if that guy would have been doing that to the girl in the bathroom, she would have been toast. He should be expelled and I hope he is.”

The fight the parent was referring to has been circulating across social media in a viral video. The video in circulation appears to depict a large, broad-shouldered young man standing over a petit female student who is sitting at a lunchroom cafeteria. While the dialogue of the exchange between the two is not clear from the video’s audio, it does depict the young man grabbing at and lunging towards the young girl with slaps and punches before a staff member is forced to intervene to pull the young man off of the girl. According to social media posters commenting on the video, the boy inquisition identifies as a female. The concerned parent made reference to the fact that the Mentor school district currently permits men in the women’s restroom and had the attack taken place in that location, rather than in the public cafeteria, the young girl may have been more severely injured.

During his report to the board, district superintendent Craig Heath discussed his continued plans to expand safety planning to protect the external buildings within the district. Heath’s plan did not include any discussion on how to improve safety within the buildings themselves. Heath did recommend the district remove the text, The Bluest Eye, in their reevaluation of curriculum for the grade 9 and 10 honors courses. The board of education for Mentor did vote to approve the texts removal.