This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
As an English professor at Rivier University, Sally Hirsh-Dickinson didn’t assign “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” in her college classes, but her students would often bring up the 1999 coming-of-age novel anyway.
“I would hear students being passionately enthusiastic about how significant this book was for them,” Hirsh-Dickinson said. “It’s a book that speaks to a lot of students in a lot of sensitive and meaningful ways.”
Hirsh-Dickinson, a Penacook representative to the Merrimack Valley School Board, said she was troubled by a high school committee’s decision to remove the book from the required curriculum in four tenth-grade English classes in response to a parent’s objection.
“I think it sets a dangerous precedent where a single complaint can alter a curriculum,” said Hirsh-Dickinson, who would like to see the decision reversed.
The determination, which made Merrimack Valley High School among the first schools in the state to restrict access to instructional content in response to a complaint, has reverberated across the regional school district since it was reported by the Concord Monitor last week.
The committee’s review of the book was prompted by an objection to its inclusion of topics including sexual assault, consensual sex, drug use, and suicide.
“We are supposed to keep our children pure and innocent for as long as possible and we just cannot understand why this material is being introduced to him and the rest of the students at this crucial age,” the parent, who requested anonymity, wrote to her son’s teacher this fall.
The parent was allowed to opt her own child out of reading the book on an individual basis, but instead elected to submit a request for reconsideration of the content, pursuant to the district’s policy.
The seven-member committee, which was composed of teachers and administrators, did not give a reason for recommending the book’s removal from the required curriculum.
“It’s hard to articulate a specific reason, but the reality is there are controversial topics in it, and it would be better to look at other options,” Principal Shaun St. Onge said in an interview.
The district’s 11-member school board was not involved in the decision about the book, but five members who were contacted in recent days expressed an array of opinions about the decision, ranging from alarm to support. The board members spoke in their individual capacities rather than on behalf of the entire board.
Jessica Wheeler Russell, an at-large representative from Penacook, joined Hirsh-Dickinson in expressing concern. While she said she trusted the committee’s expertise, she hoped it did not become a standard practice “to soften the edges for every single issue.”
“I would have had my child read that book,” Wheeler Russell said. “We can’t pick apart each little book — each thing, each piece — because if you stripped down material that was objectionable, you’d be left with nothing.”
The recommendation, which Assistant Superintendent Catherine Masterson confirmed had been adopted, does not amount to a total ban. Teachers may still include “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” in their classes as an optional text, and it remains available in the school’s library. It will no longer be required reading in any courses, however.
Masterson said the district followed “the established process” for requests for reconsideration of materials and will not revisit its decision.
“I recognize that there are passionate opinions from a variety of perspectives on this topic,” she wrote in a statement. “We will be honoring the established process and upholding the committee decision.”
Masterson said the committee members were thorough and thoughtful in their work.
“Over a period of several weeks, they read the book, engaged in discussion, and research before making the decision to recommend that the book not be required in the future,” she said.
Loudon representative Amanda York was the lone school board member contacted who said she would have made the same decision as the committee.
“The way it is written seems like it is encouraging non-consensual behavior,” York said of the book.
“This approach is not an appropriate way to teach consent versus non-consent,” she added. “This book could go against family values, and I think it’s overstepping.”
Board chair Tracy Bricchi, a former Merrimack Valley High School teacher and a Democratic state representative who, as a lawmaker, has opposed legislation restricting access to instructional materials in schools, declined to weigh in on the committee’s decision.
“I don’t believe that it’s my job as the board chair to agree or disagree with the committee,” Bricchi said. “We have a policy; we followed the policy. The committee did their job, and I think it’s my job as the [board] chair to support the decision that was made by the committee.”
Boscawen representative Tom Laliberte also didn’t express an opinion about the decision.
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is written from the perspective of a teenage boy named Charlie over the course of his freshman year at a suburban Pennsylvania high school in the early 1990s. As he pens letters to an anonymous friend, Charlie grapples with friendship, social pressures, both healthy and unhealthy romantic relationships, and mental health.
The book was a New York Times bestseller and has been lauded for describing the essence of high school life in a way that prompts reflection. The teacher who assigned the book wrote in an email to the parent that it “provides students with the opportunity to reflect on the complexities of growing up in a safe and structured environment.”
The book is also among the most frequently banned or restricted in schools, according to the organization PEN America, which tracks successful challenges to academic materials.
Merrimack Valley High is the third known school district in New Hampshire to restrict a book’s usage in response to a complaint, according to PEN America, which began tracking successful challenges across the country in 2021.
Had the committee rejected the parent’s complaint, the parent would have had the right to appeal to the superintendent and then ultimately the school board. However, other community members who don’t agree with the committee’s decision have no similar avenue of appeal.
Bricchi said that this process could prompt the board to review its policy, though she said she didn’t have an opinion about that.
Several board members said they saw an important distinction between guiding administrators on curriculum decisions and micromanaging teachers.
“I do see us facilitating a conversation to the administration on maybe directing them on how the board feels about difficult books,” Wheeler Russell said. “But not specifically what should be taught — that’s not our job.”
Bricchi joined Wheeler Russell in urging teachers to continue to exercise that pedagogical freedom in the classroom — even if that means selecting instructional materials that involve controversial topics.
“I think that teachers continue to make the decisions that they feel are in the best interest of their students,” Bricchi said. “I would hope that they wouldn’t use this outcome as a reason to stop doing that. And if that means that more things are challenged, then more things are challenged, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”