The West Valley NAACP says it’s filing a complaint with the Peoria Unified School District.
This comes after three books written by people of color were removed from the K-8 curriculum.
"Summer of the Mariposas," "A Raisin in the Sun," and "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" were pulled from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades respectively.
In an email to KJZZ, the district said the decision was made based on the maturity of the language, themes and situations in each work relative to the developmental readiness of students in those grades, adding that the texts include profanity, sexual references, racial slurs and abusive experiences.
But at a recent governing board meeting, several community members raised concerns, including Kerry Cooper with the NAACP.
“We are deeply concerned about what has happened here," Cooper said. "We are gonna continue to be a cooperative partner to press that we have dialogue regarding Policy 1-204.”
That policy, passed by the board last year prohibits the adoption or promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion frameworks.
In a statement, the district wrote: "These are curriculum decisions about required K-8 instructional materials, not library decisions, and there is no plan to remove these titles from Peoria Unified libraries. "A Raisin in the Sun" and "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" remain in our high school libraries and continue to be used in AP English Language Arts courses in grades 11 and 12."
"Summer of the Mariposas" is not currently held in any Peoria Unified school library.
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