School superintendent defends teachers criticized for assigning book with profanity to students

"I get to my hotel room and find some social media commenter calling my teachers 'demons' because they assigned a chapter of the amazing book 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' as a reading passage for a freshman honors English class. This is a book written in the voice of a nine-year-old boy who lost his dad on 9/11 in the terrorist attack on the twin towers. It's an award-winning book. But the passage has the word "s---" in it. And it has a vulgar term that I'm told the teacher was unfamiliar with it," Kuhn wrote.

He went on to say, "And it has a crude joke about talking butts - which I was a nine-year-old boy and that's the kind of crudeness we giggle at, so the author was pretty spot on. It also has the word 'p----' but that was what the kid called his cat, but the Facebook post highlighted it as part of making a case that this book was inappropriate."

Kuhn recognized that the book could be restricted to certain age groups. However, he argued that teachers face criticism for the books they assign to students, even though their intention is to challenge advanced readers.

"Thing is, it's likely valid that this book should be restricted to older kids-17-and 18-year-olds. It's worth noting that this was assigned to only the honors kids because the other passage that the class was reading-also related to 9/11-was at too easy a reading level. So these poor teachers are trying to find something for advanced kids to read, and they don't have time, and they're making a good faith effort to push kids to Meets and Masters because they care (and if our A-F grade is too low, there is outrage over that too). And they pick this award-winning book," Kuhn wrote.

"They decide one 's---' is tolerable. They aren't offended by the word 'p----' because it literally isn't a bad word in the context. They get it approved by a colleague," Kuhn noted.

Kuhn said he was taken aback by the comments in the social media post targeting the teachers who assigned the book.

Since the coronavirus pandemic, school boards and legislatures across the U.S. have passed parental rights bills and other education policies that provide transparency to parents and restrict content being taught in classrooms.

As for the particular social media post that Kuhn referred to, he told Fox News Digital that it had been removed.

"The original poster has either deleted his post or made his account private (not sure which; I just see that I can't see any of his posts, and another user that had shared it now is showing something that says the original post is not available). The 'DEMON' quote was in a comment under another user's share of the original post. I don't remember their names and there's no way I'll be able to find it, since I can't go to his original post and click to see who all shared it," Kuhn told Fox News Digital.

Kuhn said that the book "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" will be put on hold until it can be reviewed by a committee, which will determine if it is appropriate to be displayed in the district's library. 

"My understanding is that it is rated for ages 14 and up," Kuhn told Fox News Digital.