The teaching of “Ghost Boys,” about a 12-year-old Black boy who is killed by a white officer, was halted in two Broward County fifth grade classes.
Complaints from a police union and parents prompted a South Florida school system to temporarily stop teaching a fictional book about a Black boy who was fatally shot by a white police officer, district officials said.
A representative for Broward County Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the country, with more than 260,000 students, confirmed in a statement Monday that the novel, “Ghost Boys,” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, has been pulled, for now, from two fifth grade classrooms.
The spokesperson said in a statement that, after the school district received a letter from the Fraternal Order of Police, it determined that proper procedures to make sure the book could be taught in classrooms weren’t followed.
“Members of the School Board of Broward County received a letter from the Fraternal Order of Police, Florida State Lodge – District 5, expressing concern about the use of a specific young adult novel in some 5th Grade classrooms,” the statement read.
