West York school board allows climate change textbook to be added to curriculum

With less than five minutes of discussion, the West York Area School Board unanimously approved the use next school year of a textbook that includes climate change facts in it.

The brief flash of controversy over the textbook had little resonance on a school board mired in the mechanics of putting their students and teachers back into classrooms - virtual and physical ones - in the fall. 

Before the special meeting, school board member Lynn Kohler apologized to Supt. Todd Davies for distracting the board and public with the matter of this textbook, Kohl said in an interview early Monday.

"We’ve got much bigger things to worry about right now," Kohler said.

For 90 minutes, the board waded through those "bigger things" - questions and challenges of what might be needed in and out of the classrooms and the finances of it all in a coronavirus world.

Approval of the textbook was one of the last items on the agenda.

A few members of the board weighed in on the book before the vote, mostly commending the vast subject matter in the book, far more than climate change. Kohler did not speak during the discussion. 

"While I’m hopeful about tonight’s vote, I do think there were a variety of different reasons that people voted no," said board member Jeanne Herman. "I do believe that some of those no votes were based on personal biases." 

After no public discussion arose about the book, the board voted 8-0 in favor of it, according to the board secretary. There was no visibility in the Zoom meeting to see individual voting.

The textbook 

The textbook, "The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography, 13th Edition," by James M. Rubenstein, was introduced this year for a new advanced placement course about how human activity affects or is affected by the planet.

In a May meeting, Kohler raised concerns about the book. 

"He feels strongly about certain things," Davies said in an interview before the meeting. "He talked about climate change. I think that he spoke about this idea of making sure that America is talked about in a good light."

In a phone call Monday, Kohler would not share his specific concerns about the textbook because he didn't want to further the distraction of it.

"At the core, what I’ve tried to do is follow our superintendent's guidelines, which is the job of educators. It is to teach students how to think and not what to think. At the core, that’s what I want our district to do," Kohler said before the meeting. "I'm just trying to do my due diligence."

Board member George Margetas voted against approval of the book at a previous meeting.

"We had motioned to review what the book was about because one of our fellow board members had a concern with it," Margetas said before the meeting. "Had we had the lesson plan last week to review it, I think the book would have passed without any issues at all."

At a previous meeting, Margetas along with board members Brandy Shope, Toddy Gettys and Courtney Dennis voted along with Kohler to not adopt the book into the curriculum. Margetas said he wanted to review the textbook before adoption, and he believed a couple of other board members felt the same.

"The vote went the way it did because they wanted some more information," Davies said.

The book refers to the science of changes in the environment. A few quotes from the book in reference to climate change are:

• "Earth's temperature has risen an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) during the past century."
• "The principal cause of Earth's recent climate change has been human actions."
• "A major contributor to global warming is the burning of fossil fuels by motor vehicles, whether on urban highways or rural farms."

"My wish is for us to move on," Kohler said. "I’ve made my point. It’s time to move on."

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'How?'

"How do we keep our kids safe? How do we keep our teachers safe?" Davies said in an interview Monday morning. Those crushing issues of reopening the schools in the fall are what the board is spending many special meetings wading through.

"There’s a lot to do, and I think that the part that has a lot of our schools and everyone worried ... there’s no playbook for this," he said.

CDC restrictions on size of groups large and small can change the dynamics of the school day.

"It’s going to make some things really difficult to plan for," he said. "We’re hoping for more guidance from the governor. ... We have a finite amount of money, so I don’t want to buy all this stuff that isn't called for."

A quality education for every student is what weighs on Davies now.

"Our goal is to provide a continuity of education that is as robust … as our kids," he said.

Kim Strong can be reached at kstrong@ydr.com.