Christine Beachler - Literacy Champion

Originally published in the Lowell Ledger September 27th, 2023 

Lowell Area Schools Library Media Director Honored by Kent District Library

Christine Beachler has been a staff member of Lowell Area Schools for 35 years. She graduated from Central Michigan University with a teaching degree in Business. For her first 13 years Christine taught accounting and computer classes. She became a school librarian in 2001. Since then she earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and then earned a Master of Library Information Systems certification, both from Grand Valley. To be a school librarian, a person must have a teaching certificate plus a master’s degree or its equivalent in library science as well as the specific certification required by the State of Michigan. Christine works in and oversees the libraries in all six schools.

Christine Beachler was recognized by the Kent District Library
as a Literacy Champion.

Anyone who spends any amount of time with Christine will come away with an impression of a person who loves what they do. She takes her job very seriously and is extremely informed and articulate. Most of them time when we interview people we cherry pick the highlights from their answers, but in the case of Christine Beachler her answers were so well thought out and full of information that many of them are quoted in their entirety below. The subject of books in LAS schools has gotten a lot of attention from a small group in the last two or three years and we welcomed the occasion of this award to discuss it in depth.

Beachler’s work was celebrated by the Kent District Library Board of Directors. She was nominated and ultimately chosen to be honored as a KDL Literacy Champion at their 9^th annual Literary Libations Gala September 19th. The nomination highlighted Christine's advocacy for parent's and student's right and freedom to read what they choose. She was also recognized for creating a safe and welcome place in schools where students feel safe and see themselves reflected in the library collection.

Lance Werner is the Executive Director of KDL. He stated, “Christine has proven, under the worst of circumstances time and time again, that people’s civil rights are worthy of being defended. Rather than being vilified, she should be celebrated as a defender of the Constitution and freedom. That’s why she was selected for this award.”

“Being nominated by a member from the Lowell Community and ultimately being chosen for the KDL Literacy Champion award for 2023 is a huge honor for me,” Christine remarked. “It is quite a distinction to be acknowledged as a leader throughout Kent County promoting literacy. I am very grateful to KDL Leadership for recognizing the contributions of professionals in school libraries working alongside them tirelessly to provide students with comprehensive, diverse, age appropriate and current library collections.”

Beachler believes school and public library collections instill a love of reading and lifelong learning for our students and provide the backbone of literacy. She feels that all students deserve the right to read books that they see themselves reflected in and stories that are most meaningful to them. Christine maintains that books are ways students understand complex topics and limiting students’ access to books does not protect them from experiencing life’s issues.

We asked her a two part question about all of the fuss being made in the recent past about kids having access to certain books. We inquired about the rules regarding what students are allowed to check out and the rules in place for concerned parents who might want to limit access to certain books.

Christine explained, “At Lowell Area Schools (and every school that I’m aware of in our area) all parents have 100% control over what their children may or may not read. If a parent has any concerns regarding books in their child’s library collection, they simply need to contact me to have titles restricted from their child’s access. We notify parents of this policy several times each year, so they all know they have this option. All of our library catalogs are available online for parents to search, so every parent and community member has full access to the titles in each library at any time. With this knowledge, we currently have three families across all six schools in the district that have restrictions placed on their children’s library accounts. That is three out of nearly 3750 students. Clearly, the vast majority of our parents trust our library staff to choose excellent books to include in our libraries and most parents work with us to provide the best literacy options for their children.”

From all of the hubbub about access to books at School Board meetings, one might expect that dozens of district parents had taken steps to restrict the access their children have to material they find objectionable from the library. Two seconds on a calculator shows that as of today exactly .008% of families have taken such measures.

When we asked Beachler to explain, she responded, “There is a small group of individuals from the community that have claimed that Lowell Area Schools has pornography in their libraries by posting on social media and reading at Board of Education meetings a few salacious excerpts from books. This claim is simply untrue. Members of the group even filed a police report to the Lowell Police Dept with this claim as well as to the Kent County prosecuting attorney. In both cases, the claims were dropped because the fact remains that, by Michigan Law, there is no pornography in our school libraries.”

This prompted a follow up: What would you like to say to concerned parents about the materials their kids can check out at the High School and from any school in the District?

Beachler answered, “If a parent is concerned about what their children are reading, the best scenario is to read with your children and/or become aware of what they are reading. Talk to your children about the books they enjoy. Understand the value of literature to open children’s minds to be discerning readers and critical thinkers. We all raise our children to have integrity that guides their choices in everything that they do. As children grow, parents need to allow them opportunities to explore, expand their knowledge and experiences and learn.”

She also expressed that if questions or concerns arise, she would welcome the opportunity to address them by having parents reach out to her for factual information. The rules of engagement on the topic of books seems to involve a lot of misinformation and disinformation. Just recently one of the people constantly harping about books and students posted five pages of pictures from five books on social media and inferred that all the books were available in Lowell schools when in fact only two of them in their collection and one of the books was restricted and could only be checked out by a senior. Christine engaged with some concerned parents and explained the truth of the matter. Her attention and the answers she gave provided comfort to them and allayed their concerns.

Beachler explained, “After my conversation, clarification and factual information, [by] which I provided solid proof of to back up my comments, the people were no longer upset and thanked me for the clarity. This has happened many times over the past three years. I realize that seeing this misinformation posted on social media can be concerning, but it is best to contact me directly for current and factual information.”

We went on to discus the subject of book banning. Christine explained that books being challenged in Michigan and around the country depends a lot on timing and the current hot topics. She named a short list of books that show up regularly like “1984” by George Orwell, “The Catcher In The Rye” by J.D. Salinger and a few others by authors like Mark Twain, Harper Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and Alice Walker that most of us probably read in the course of our education. She also explained that the efforts to block access to books in the last three or four years have centered around books that examine racial issues and those dealing with the lgbtqia+ topics including “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M Johnson, and “Flamer” by Mike Curato.

The American Library Association (ALA) has been tracking the effort to ban certain books for more than twenty years. According to the ALA, there were 1,269 books bans in 2022, which is the highest number of them since they have been monitoring the situation. Interested people can follow the subject at the ALA website: www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/by-the-numbers)

Before leaving this topic, Christine had more to say,”Lowell Area Schools is a nonpartisan organization and the only activities we will participate in is educating all of our students to the best of our ability and within the guidelines, policies and laws of the LAS Board of Education and the State of Michigan. It is not our place to get involved in political agendas of the community or to impose our personal opinions on our students. We educate students from families of all backgrounds, religions, races, or genders equally, by law. Therefore, parents with varying beliefs, morals, values and experiences will have differing opinions on what is or is not appropriate library content for our students. LAS simply can not determine what is/is not appropriate for each family and that makes it critical for us to have a policy in place that allows for compromise and individual parent control. That is exactly what we have at LAS; every parent has complete control over what their children read. We will never all agree on over 125,000 books within the six libraries in our school district, so any parents with concerns should choose for their own children.”

The record of School Board meetings show that over the last three years a small but very vocal group of individuals have made false claims and spread disinformation around Lowell through social media and at board meetings.
“The group members know their claim is not true, yet continue to spread misinformation throughout our community,” Christine continued. “By law, a work of literature must be evaluated as a whole, not by an excerpt. It is crucial all people understand this fact and refrain from making judgments on any title until they have read the entire book. If a person reads an entire book and feels it would not be valuable to any students in the district, they have a right to file a Request for Reconsideration (Book Challenge) for that title. LAS has clear, fair, thorough and current policies for all of our book catalogs.”

She brought up several other salient points about books in school libraries. First and foremost library books are optional reading materials. Unlike books for particular classes, no students are required to ready anything from the library. If a book is offensive in some way, then leave it on the shelf. This does not represent the diminishing of anyone’s rights. Beachler has no inclination to stop any concerned parent from exercising their right to control materials accessed by their children.

“Every parent has the right to choose for their children what library books can be read,” Christine stated. “They do not have the right to choose for other parents’ children, and removing titles from our school libraries is book banning and a violation of our students’ 1st amendment rights to choose what they read. Just because the members of the small group of Lowell community members keeps saying they ‘don’t want to ban books’ does not change the fact that they are trying to ban books.”
As the discussion continued, we acknowledged that the last three years have been very difficult for Beachler. We asked about ways that people could let her know that they appreciate what she does.

“The past three years have undoubtedly been the most difficult of my 36-year career at LAS. Having school community members call me a pedophile, groomer and many other unkind and untrue names has been very hurtful to me and my family,” Beachler replied. “I have been bullied and harassed by members of this small group of community members for following our school board policies. It is very unfortunate that a few people feel it is OK to disparage and try to discredit me for doing my job. But on that same note, the vast majority of people in Lowell are kind, respectful and caring people; they do not associate themselves with this small group of individuals and do not agree with the mean tactics that have been used to force their beliefs and opinions on everyone else. Most people understand that we will not all agree on each book and respect other parents’ right to choose for their own children. There has been an incredible outpouring of support from the community and I’m very grateful for those people that can compromise and act in the best interest of all students and support our library staff, administration and school board.”

Christine also wants to assure LAS parents that the schools will continue to work in good faith on behalf of all students with class, grace, respect and integrity. “We will always answer questions with complete honesty and treat everyone in our school community kindly. It has been a full three years dealing with this same issue and we are still here providing the truth in the face of misinformation and still providing a high quality, robust collection of library books for all LAS students,” she concluded. 

In spite of the last few turbulent years, the affection and appreciation that Christine has for the Lowell area in general as well as the schools, students and families continues to be clearly evident. She is married to Phil Beachler who has taught and coached in Lowell schools for over three decades as well. Their two children, Matt and Kortney, attended and graduated from Lowell schools.

“I have always loved working and living in Lowell. It is a wonderful, supportive and amazing community that my husband and I are blessed to be a part of and where we had the honor of raising our family,” Christine said. “My favorite part of my job is seeing a student’s smile when they find the perfect book for them!”

Helping students find “the perfect book” while at the same time making sure that families have the ability to control what their children access. Watching over the inventory of six libraries while dealing with unwarranted attacks that crossed way over the line into personal territory is no easy task. Christine Beachler has the passion, training, and professionalism to pull it off. No wonder the people from Kent District Library saw fit to honor her. She is truly a Literacy Champion.