Part-time Indian pulled from middle school classrooms in West Virginia.

From The Journal:

Jefferson County Schools has discontinued the use of a controversial book being read by about 120 students at Harpers Ferry Middle School, said Pat Blanc, an assistant superintendent who oversees curriculum and instruction.

As a result, students are no longer reading "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Native American author Sherman Alexie.

"We checked and it was not on the state-approved list of books, so it should have gone through the process for approval in the county. But that didn't happen," Blanc said.

This sounds a lot like the recent story about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in Iowa: book is challenged mid-way through an assignment, school realizes that the book hasn't gone through whatever administrative rigmarole it should have gone through, they pull the book, multiple classes have to stop reading a book halfway through and start the unit all over again with a different book.

I understand that it's important for the teachers to follow the guidelines for getting books cleared in the first place—that way, for one thing, there'd (hopefully) be a more clear path when challenges happen—but it seems like it would be far less disruptive to have allowed the challenger's son to switch assignments, have everyone else finish the Alexie, AND THEN send the book off to get cleared or whatever. It just seems like they chose the path that was the most fraught with confusion and the least conducive to learning.

But, who knows, maybe there are legal ramifications that I'm unaware of.