Batavia Public High School Leaders Make a Mess | Kane County Speaks

One high school in a Chicago suburb has apparently not gotten the message that parents have had it with the lousy curricular decisions, lack of transparency, and near-absolute autonomy of public school leaders—also known as public servants.

In the fall of 2024, Batavia Public High School English teacher Marnie Heim taught the novel The School for Good Mothers, a dystopian novel about government intrusiveness and oppression, societal expectations regarding motherhood, sexual inequality, race, and homosexuality. In other words, it was yet another politically driven curricular selection.

Here are some excerpts from The School for Good Mothers that Heim thought was suitable reading for other people’s minor children:

1. Frida on her back, her feet on Will’s shoulders. … It takes another handful of lube and many deep exhales before he can enter her. … “I feel like my dick is in your skull.” Will marvels at this good fortune. “God, you’re tight as fuck.”
2. If she were truly reckless, he’d fuck her on the floor instead of leading her to his now tidy bedroom. He wouldn’t ask permission before undressing her. He refuses to turn off the lights. “I want to see you,’ he says. She rakes her fingers through the dark hair on his stomach. His penis is huge and worrying. She’s never seen a penis of this size in person. Only the tip fits in her mouth.
3. Teen Mom hints she has a secret. She grows impatient with Frida’s guesses. “Come closer. … Listen, so, I fucked the guard. The cute one. You better not say anything, or I’ll tell every single bitch here that you tried to kiss me.” … Teen Mom and the green-eyed guard fucked in the parking lot. In his car. … She only let him fuck her ass. … He came in two minutes. His dick is long and narrow. … She wants to ask … if the guard fingered her while fucking her ass, if the guard was noisy.

For activists, the beauty of teaching English is that their rationalizations for teaching whatever rot they want to teach are limited only by their imaginations: “This text connects thematically to other texts I’m teaching,” “We’re studying literary devices, and this novel is brimming over with literary devices,” “The book has won prestigious awards,” “Representation matters,” or “Diversity, man, diversity.”

You’ll rarely if ever hear an English teacher speak truthfully: “I want to teach texts that depict and espouse my personal views on women, whites, lesbians, trans people, or boundary-free sexuality.”

What exactly are the criteria used to select (or not select, i.e., ban) books? Who socially constructs these criteria? Are they publicly available? Does the nature and extent of depictions of sexuality constitute one of the criteria? Should it? If a novel espouses ideological positions on a contemporary controversies, should teachers have students read critiques of those ideological positions—you know, in the service of diversity and critical thinking?

Sometimes, the depiction of sex acts in a novel or play is so graphically obscene that no broader context is sufficient to justify its inclusion in a class for minors.

No responsible, decent adult equipped with good judgment would have chosen to teach a novel to other people’s minor children with even one of the above passages. How depraved have adults become that they cannot immediately see that porn is unfit for consumption by minors (or anyone else)?

After parental complaints, the book was pulled from the curriculum with the teacher sending a note saying in part,

It was never my intent to make students uncomfortable. I was focusing on dystopian aspects of the novel and the ideas of motherhood and how it was portrayed in this futuristic setting. … I wanted students to have a modern text to connect to as they partnered it with The Awakening. … Although the book has received numerous awards, upon reflection, I acknowledge that some parts may be considered inappropriate for some students.

Oh, so close.

The pornographic content is absolutely inappropriate, and it’s inappropriate for all public school students.

Do students need a modern feminist text to partner with an older feminist text? Did Heim’s hyper-focus on the dystopian aspects of the book, ideas about motherhood, and its futuristic setting blind her to the shocking pornographic passages?

More reflection is definitely in order.

A word about awards and prizes: First, I can’t find a single award won by this novel. It was longlisted for a couple of awards, shortlisted for another, won none. But Barack Obama and Jenna Bush really liked it.

Second, book awards are awarded by teeny tiny groups of people, mostly leftists. So, for example, the egregiously obscene Angels in America, which was taught by multiple teachers in District 113 (Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools) won a Pulitzer Prize. That prize, which was awarded by a jury of five people, was then used as some sort of objective measure of the play’s worth and as justification for teaching it to minors.

What’s at least as troubling as Heim’s choice of a novel that has stood the test of less than three years time is what has happened at recent school board meetings regarding the novel.

Somehow there have been mysterious glitches in the publicly available recordings of the school board meetings at which community members criticized the book.

In one recording, the name of the teacher has been bleeped out. Who made that decision and why? This was an open meeting, and she is a paid public servant. Neither her superiors nor the school board have an ethical right to run cover for her.

Every public school teacher should be happy to have their curricular choices known to the public who pay her or his salary.

But what public school teachers really want is complete autonomy and anonymity in their taxpayer-funded jobs—jobs that pay quite handsomely. In 2024, Heim’s base salary—paid by Illinoisans—is $107,403, with another $29,263.02 in “other benefits,” and “retirement enhancements” of $603.04.

Her name is not all that’s missing from the public record. Obscene passages from this novel that were read aloud at a November board meeting are gone—just disappeared like 18.5 minutes from the Watergate tapes.

It seems like the Batavia Public High School leadership has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Article written by Laurie Higgins and posted on Breakthrough Ideas

December 20 letter from District

We thank the citizens who alerted us to the pornographic rot being taught at Batavia High School.   It should serve as a warning for parents and other community members to keep a close watch on your schools for similar selections being taught.

Laurie Higgins expertly distills the wrong-headed thinking going on by the English teacher by selecting a book with graphic sexual passages to teach to minors.

There are other concerns. Parents and residents who spoke out about the book had their comments edited, and entire speakers were edited from the official school board meeting video, according to reports from members who spoke up. If this is true, the school district could be charged with a felony for altering, destroying, or concealing the official public record.

The school district wants to sweep this under the rug, as they already removed the book in question, but not before exposing disturbing imagery to young minds. The public needs to hold them accountable and investigate official records violations.

Follow up questions: -Will the school and/or the Batavia School Board take any actions?
-Has the Kane County Sherrif Office been notified of this incident and asked to investigate exposure of sexually explicit information to children?