Dear TCA family,

THANK YOU for your support! We are excited that we have already reached 275 signatures on our petition. Thank you for lending your name to this effort and for sharing this petition with other families connected to TCA. 

We are writing with three quick updates:

First, there is a board meeting tonight at 6pm. The meeting will be held in the TCA North elementary school gym, as the normal meeting location was damaged by the recent flood. All are welcome at the meeting! For those unable to attend, we will provide another update later this week.

Second, over the weekend a TCA student started a counter-petition calling on TCA to “Reject the Proposition to Ban Books from the TCA Library.” Unfortunately, this petition makes many false statements about our petition, and thus seriously misstates what parents are asking for. To set the record straight and promote productive dialogue, we have produced a response that addresses these errors. While we encourage you to read this three-page response for yourself and share it with others, the main points are as follows:

1. Our petition does not ask TCA to remove any specific books from the TCA library. 
2. Our petition does not ask TCA to remove all 140 books on its “parent permission” list. 
3. Our petition clearly states the aspects of TCA’s library selection criteria that parents are concerned about. 
4. There is reason to doubt that the TCA library has consistently implemented the board-approved book selection criteria. 
5. The parents behind our petition have not sought to bypass TCA policies but have only asked TCA to ensure its policies are being followed. 
6. Our petition does not ask TCA to infringe students’ First Amendment rights. 
7. TCA’s library is finite and TCA policy requires the library to focus on books that advance TCA’s curriculum and Core Values.  

Third, in response to several requests, we have made public the 140-book “Parent Permission list that a parent got from TCA through the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA). The first page of this document clarifies that no one is asking to ban these books, though we believe the way the TCA library developed and has used this list raises important concerns.

Please feel free to share this email and any of these links with other TCA families. These links are also available to view and share at https://bit.ly/m/TCAGoodBooks.

With gratitude,

Advocates4TCA

advocates4tca@gmail.com