LETTER: Board of Ed Candidate Looks to Dispel Rumors

Bozidar Jovanovic is one of eight candidates running for the Board of Education this coming Tuesday, May 18th.

In this open letter, Jovanovic says he is looking to dispel “some rumors [that] are being spread about me on Rye Moms and Rye Moms uncensored” in regards to his views on books and curriculum in the Rye schools.

It has been brought to my attention that rumors are being spread how I wanted to ban books. This is a lie. The meeting referred to in November 2019 was with Ann Edwards and Joe DiGiovanni and concerned the reading list one of my daughters got in her 8th grade English class.

The issue I have (and I ‘ve been pursuing this for over 10 years) is that school is not a place for someone’s ideologies to be pushed onto the students. The said reading list contained a large section named “social justice”, yet out of a 100 books there were maybe 5 texts that could be considered literature. The point is this – in school , in particular in English classes , children are supposed to read texts that transcend the times and speak about the human condition – what we normally refer to as classics. As it stands right now, that is marginalized in order to push writings with a particular message that maybe the political falvor du jour. Is anyone going to tell me that “social justice” pieces are the same as Shakespeare, Milton, Shaw, Moliere, Balzac, Goete , Tolstoy?

What I advocate for is that school focuses on these literary works and spend small amount of time on contemporary works. Exactly the opposite of what that class provided. Just as I suggest in my BoE platform – Education, not Indoctrination.

No one should ever ban books. If you ever saw my home, you would know how ridiculous that rumor sounds. But I am sure it is serving the purpose of those who are spreading it.

Regards,

Bozidar Jovanovic